By late December 2003, the members of the New York Times editorial board were losing their patience.
By late December 2003, the members of the New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times"
editorial board were losing their patience. Obviously there had to be a
special prosecutor special prosecutor: see independent counsel. to investigate the leak of the name of Valerie
Wilson The name Valerie Wilson may refer to: - Valerie Plame, CIA operative whose identity was disclosed in a 2003 newspaper column, resulting in a political scandal and criminal investigation
, the CIA-operative wife of the Bush-bashing ambassador Joseph
Wilson Joseph Wilson or Joe Wilson may refer to:
People - Joseph Wilson (martial arts), martial artist
- Joseph C. Wilson, former United States ambassador and husband of Valerie Plame Wilson
- Joseph C.
. Yet then attorney general John Ashcroft took no action, instead
letting Justice Department lawyers under his command handle the issue.
Finally, on December 30, Ashcroft relented, and the next day the
Times' published an editorial headlined "The Right Thing, at
Last," in which it praised Ashcroft's decision to appoint
prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Back then, it's safe to say, the
Times's editorial writers did not foresee that the episode would
end up with the paper's Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Judith
Miller, going to jail for 85 days and then being forced to retire amid a
crisis of credibility that seemed to engulf en·gulf
tr.v. en·gulfed, en·gulf·ing, en·gulfs
To swallow up or overwhelm by or as if by overflowing and enclosing: The spring tide engulfed the beach houses. the entire paper. And
that's not mentioning the Times's role in forcing a
confrontation with Fitzgerald that ended up weakening journalists'
already-weak defenses against the needs of criminal investigators. If
that doesn't teach the Times' to be careful what it wishes
for, nothing will.
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