Ashcroft Will Kill This Investigation - Security

(September 28th, 2003 -- 9:27 AM EDT // link)

Just flipped on the TV and found Fox News interviewing Condi Rice. As it happened, a minute or two after I tuned in Brit Hume asked Rice about the Wilson/Plame matter. Let's be honest, I didn't expect Hume and Tony Snow to be the most hard-hitting questioners on this issue. But you couldn't watch the exchange without seeing how big a deal this is. First of all, Rice denied nothing. It was, in so many words, all no comments. More telling I thought was how visibly rattled Rice seemed. She seemed to have a hard time getting her words out. Her breathing was halting.

To their credit, Hume and Snow followed up by noting that this was a sufficiently serious charge that a bland 'no comment' didn't really cut it. But all Rice could do was awkwardly say that she wasn't going to answer questions because it's in the Justice Department's hands, they're investigating, and that this is the kind of thing that the president doesn't accept. What I took from this is that the White House was stunned by this rapid escalation of events. And they haven't figured out what to do. Or, if they have, they haven't let Condi in on it yet.

When your best argument is 'the Justice Department is investigating us and we hope they get to the bottom of it', you're in a jam.

-- Josh Marshall Tweet