These are a few of my impressions of the NYT’s article.
But Mr. Sulzberger and the paper’s executive editor, Bill Keller, knew few details about Ms. Miller’s conversations with her confidential source other than his name. They did not review Ms. Miller’s notes. Mr. Keller said he learned about the “Valerie Flame” notation only this month. Mr. Sulzberger was told about it by Times reporters on Thursday.
As I’ve said for some time in posts and comments here, I’ve had a “gut” hunch that Judith Miller lied or withheld key information from the NYT, which hampered her editors and publishers’ realistic appraisal of her case and how they represented her case to the paper’s readers.
Once Ms. Miller was jailed, her lawyers were in open conflict about whether she should stay there. She had refused to reopen communications with Mr. Libby for a year, saying she did not want to pressure a source into waiving confidentiality.
Judith Miller’s attorneys — Floyd Abrams, the First Amendment specialist also representing the NYT, and Bob Bennett, a criminal attorney, both spoke on September 30, independently of each other and on different talk shows, about their communications with Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby’s attorney. Neither Abrams or Bennett ever referred to the other in interviews that day.
Their lack of referral to each other, and seeming independent work on contacts with Tate, lead me to believe that the two men were competing for the limelight or did not get along. Such discord on a legal team can adversely affect clients, in this case both Ms. Miller and the NYT.
But in the end, saying “I owed it to myself” after two months of jail, she had her lawyer reach out to Mr. Libby. This time, hearing directly from her source, she accepted his permission and was set free.
Wrong. Just plain wrong. Judith Miller’s attorneys weren’t the ones successful in reaching out to Joseph Tate. It was Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s September letter to Tate that got the ball rolling, reported the A.P.’s Peter Yost yesterday. (Yost: “It was Fitzgerald’s letter to Libby’s lawyer in September that helped resolve the impasse over Miller, resulting in her testimony.”)
“W.M.D. – I got it totally wrong,” she said. “The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them – we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could.”
Judith Miller perpetuated easily disproved lies that have led to the deaths of almost 2,000 American soldiers, the injuries of tens of thousands, and the injuries and deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqs. She has NO excuse. She did the worst job possible for a highly influential newspaper that affects how news is subsequently reported around the world.
More BELOW:
Ms. Miller said her notes leave open the possibility that Mr. Libby told her Mr. Wilson’s wife might work at the agency.
This is complete bullshit. And I hope the NYT reporters told her so.
The notebook Ms. Miller used that day includes the reference to “Valerie Flame.” But she said the name did not appear in the same portion of her notebook as the interview notes from Mr. Libby.
I can’t imagine any self-respecting reporter buying this crap, or being willing to write this crap.
The notebook Ms. Miller used that day includes the reference to “Valerie Flame.” […]
Ms. Miller returned to the subject on July 12 in a phone call with Mr. Libby. Another variant on Valerie Wilson’s name – “Victoria Wilson” – appears in the notes of that call.
Who’s kidding who here. Judith Miller purposely wrote the names down slightly “off” in a juvenile attempt to obscure what she was being told — or, dare I suggest, to cover up the fact that it was she who was telling this to Libby, so she pretended, in her notes, that she was taking down the information.
Update [2005-10-15 22:23:39 by susanhu]: I’m stopping here .. I’m on the third page of the eight-page article. Over and out. More later, or I’m hoping that Jerry and Boo write their usual briliant stuff.
