Well, here it is, from The New York Times:

In her opening statement, Ms. Rice is expected to speak directly to the survivors of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, some of whom will be in the audience in a Senate hearing room.

There's your big sound bite. There's the lead on every newscast tomorrow night. There's what everyone (except a few snotty lefty grumblers like you and me) is going to remember from her testimony.

I don't know what she's going to say, apart from the fact that it won't be an apology, according to the Times, but I assure you that more effort has been expended on this sound bite in the West Wing over the past week than on troop strength in Iraq.

Meanwhile, here's some pre-testimony Rice hagiography, from AP ("Friends, Foes Say Rice Has Spirit, Toughness She'll Need for Sept. 11 Testimony") and the New York Post's Deborah Orin ("Inside Condi's Private World").

Please note the dog that has yet to bark: Many, many Americans believe that Hillary Clinton is a pathologically ambitious, unfeminine, manipulative bitch, and everyone else in America knows that this is what many of their fellow citizens think. Then there's Condi Rice, unmarried, and described glowingly (in the two stories I've linked and elsewhere) as a go-getter, steely under pressure, and able to mold the mind of the President of the United States. Isn't it odd that Rice hasn't had to fight her way to respect through widespread catcalls about inadequate femininity, excessive levels of ambition, or sinister subterfuge in the manpulation of powerful male leaders? There's a tiny bit of that, but with Hillary Clinton it's mainstream.

Anyone who sees an equivalence in the ability of right-wingers and left-wingers to disseminate deeply divisive partisan messages has to explain away this fact.

(Just for the record, I don't want to see Rice attacked this way. I favor the high road: Get her on the issues.)