What Are Senate Committee Meetings Really For?

I've looked at a couple of articles on Condoleeza Rice's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly the reason for her testimony. Read this article and tell me, other than giving the Senators someone to flog publicly, what was the purpose of this?

"I don't see, Madame Secretary, how things are getting better. I think things are getting worse. I think they're getting worse in Iraq. I think they're getting worse in Iran," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told Rice as she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Rice also had a tense exchange with moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., over the pace of progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace and the implications of the Hamas victory in Palestinian legislative elections last month.

Typically soft-spoken, Chafee tersely questioned whether the United States could have prevented Hamas from coming to power. "Opportunities missed," Chafee lamented after rattling off a list. "Now we have a very, very disastrous situation of a terrorist organization winning elections."

Rice said she agrees it's a difficult moment for the peace process, but responded: "I don't think the United States of America is responsible for the election of Hamas. No I don't."

And

At one point, Rice and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., interrupted one another as they argued about U.S. policy in the Middle East, where the Democrat accused the Bush administration of having a "tin ear" to Arab views.

Boxer, who was one of Rice's most persistent critics during a contentious confirmation process last year, also recalled Rice's warning before the 2003 Iraq invasion that the world could not afford to let the "smoking gun" of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction become a "mushroom cloud."

"That was a farce and the truth is coming out," Boxer said.

And

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., challenged Rice over whether she was involved in leaking classified information or authorized the leak of such information to the press. "I have always acted lawfully within my duties as national security adviser and now as secretary of state," Rice said. "I believe the protection of classified information is our highest, one of our highest duties."

And, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, top Democrat on the panel, said "I'm not hopeful" of a unity government in Iraq.

"The policy seems not to be succeeding," he said.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., pressed Rice on an issue related to her previous job as Bush's national security adviser: the president's domestic spying program.

Does this sound like random questions looking to make Rice look bad. I've seen some recordings of the testimony, and it's quite obvious that the Senators are just being nasty.

Oh and the reason for the testimony:

The money Rice wants for Iran, to be included in an emergency 2006 budget request the White House is expected to send to Congress as early as this week, would be used for radio and satellite television broadcasting and for programs to help Iranians study abroad.

Interesting questions.