NY Times buries the lede... Condi is leaving?

The White House may have sent a phalanx of top officials to Capitol Hill this week to be grilled by the Sept. 11 panel, but the one official who did not appear publicly has turned out to be the official the panel wanted most: Condoleezza Rice.

As she prepares to leave her job at the end of the year, Ms. Rice, the president's national security adviser, now finds herself at the center of a political storm, furiously defending both the White House and her own reputation.