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September 28, 2003
Frog-Marching
I'm not sure what "frog-marching" is, but Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who publicly challenged Bush's "Niger-yellowcake" allegations, is ready to see Karl Rove "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Apparently, a senior White House official is responsible for the leak to six reporters (including Robert Novak who went public with the information) that revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA agent investigating weapons of mass desctruction. CalPundit has an excellent summary of the situation to-date, and his frustration at the apparent cynicism of the Bush administration pretty much sums up my feelings, too. It's important to note that Bush himself isn't implicated in in the scandal, but an administration that is willing to reveal the identities of high-level agents for political purposes is playing a dirty and illegal game.
Kind of makes Whitewater look a little less significant now. Well deserved credit to Nation reporter David Corn (as well as the Washington Post reporters cited above) for blowing the cover off this story. Looks like Ashcroft won't be able to hide from this one.
Posted by chuck at September 28, 2003 12:40 PM
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Comments
Suffer in ignorance no longer:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=frog-march
:)
Posted by: Liz at September 28, 2003 1:04 PM
Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo has been working this story for a couple of weeks--including, particularly, a detailed interview with Wilson which rounds out most of the background. http:/www.talkingpointsmemo.com
Posted by: Jason at September 28, 2003 4:09 PM
Jason: Thanks for the reminder about TPM. Josh Marshall is certainly an interesting and informed blogger. I've heard several reliable observers suggest that Tenet is the "senior administration official" who might have been the source for the story. It looks like this could be a *big* story.
Liz: Thanks for the link. :) That's more or less what I'd imagined "frog-marching" to be, but it's such an evocative term. I suddenly had this image of Karl Rove suddenly transformed into a giant 6-foot tall frog wearing a yellow prison outfit being led out in handcuffs by somber FBI officials. In this vision the giant frog dwarfs the FBI agents, somehow making his guilt all the more apparent. It was as if David Cronenberg had been assigned to direct a "West Wing" episode scripted by Lewis Carroll.
Posted by: chuck at September 28, 2003 4:31 PM
While the props are being handed out, don't forget NBC News, they broke the story here http://msnbc.com/news/937524.asp. Time mag. also has a good piece on it.
Posted by: V+ at September 28, 2003 6:57 PM
This Joseph Wilson guy was on The Daily Show back around July. I could tell right away he was gonna be in trouble with Gov. Bush when John Stewart had him on for two segments - JS hardly ever does that. The entire audience sat and was very quiet as Wilson told the how the whole "yellow cake" thing was a bunch of hogwash, and Stewart sat there the whole time with his mouth open while he tried to wrap his brain around what Wilson was saying.
Check it out here:
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001569.php
Posted by: Randy at September 30, 2003 10:51 PM
Thanks for the links, Randy. I agree with Lisa that The Daily Show pretty much has the best news on TV. You'll probably appreciate this link I found on Liz's site:
http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002107.html
Posted by: chuck at September 30, 2003 11:36 PM