The Frog March matter didn't end up as front page news in either of the newspapers I read today (NYT, Trib) for the first time since Monday. But some highlights from around the 'net:
- Frank Rich urges everyone to focus on the putative leader of the U.S., and not on various red herrings:
This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.....
Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the “Never mind!” with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on “Saturday Night Live.” The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost “in the bowels” of the bureaucracy or that it was all the C.I.A.'s fault or that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.
Next to White House courtiers of their rank, Mr. Wilson is at most a Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The brief against the administration's drumbeat for war would be just as damning if he'd never gone to Africa. But by overreacting in panic to his single Op-Ed piece of two years ago, the White House has opened a Pandora's box it can't slam shut. Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king.
[note, looks like the online version is different from the print version, or at least the rss excerpt is altered. Have to check that]
- Matt Cooper's article, which contradicts Luskin/Rove's assertion that the conversation initially began as a discussion of 'welfare reform'.
- Explanation of 'why smear Wilson' by Fineman, via DKos
an excellent explanation of how Rove's war on Joe Wilson came about:
Talk Left offers a succinct description of the differences between civil contempt and criminal contempt:
What's the difference between criminal contempt and civil contempt?
In a nutshell, civil contempt is a coercive measure - it is used to try and get the person to talk. If Judith Miller were to change her mind and testify while jailed for civil contempt, she would be considered to have purged herself of the contempt.
Criminal contempt is a punitive measure, used when it is clear that the person is not going to talk. It's meant to punish someone for violating a court order, to vindicate the dignity of the court and to deter others from doing so.
Second, civil contempt has a penalty limit in the grand jury context: the life of the grand jury (or any successive grand jury) investigating the matter. Grand juries serve for 18 months.
Believe it or not, a criminal contempt charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. There is no maximum penalty set by the statute, which makes any sentence up to life a possibility. However, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines apply to criminal contempt, and while the offense does not have its own guideline penalty, the directions are to use the penalty for the crime that is most analagous to it. I think in Miller's case, it would be the guideline for obstruction of justice.
- as well as a link to the profile on Valerie Plame and Ambassador Wilson from Vanity Fair
- Wilson's original op-ed available here
- Digby parses the latest leaks here
It seems more likely to me now that Fitzgerald is building an obstruction and conspiracy case. Unless he's stupid, which no one has ever said he is, he cannot believe these laughable excuses. If he has evidence that ties Novak into it after he shot his mouth off then that's a real cover-up.
and here
there is a big question as to whether anybody in the administration continued to circulate the memo to conservative news outlets (although they were certainly discussing it with mainstream news outlets.) Rather it appears that the CIA got the impression Jeff Gannon of Talon News had seen the memo (and rightly so, he acted as if he did) when he had in fact seen this article from October of 2003 in the WSJ
- Billmon adds more
and if you followed all the above referenced links, you're remarkably well informed. I'd add only one thing to all the above referenced expertise: can we restore a little dignity to the White House yet? Jeez.....
