At long last The New York Times has published its long-awaited exposé detailing its role and that of its Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Judith Miller in the scandal that has come to be commonly referred to as “Plamegate.”
It is not a pretty picture. Neither the Times nor Judith Miller emerge from this article looking at all favorable. More problematical for the Times, whose reputation has been badly tarnished by this affair, the article seemingly raises more questions than it answers both about the veracity of Judith Miller and the transparency of America’s “newspaper of record,” The New York Times.
The new Times article is far from kind to Judith Miller, nor does it offer compelling justification for Miller’s long refusal to testify before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury that has been investigating the July 2003 outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert CIA agent involved in preventing the proliferation of WMD.
The article notes that “three courts, including the Supreme Court declined to back Ms. Miller.” The Times neglected to point out that some of the judges supported the principle of a journalist being allowed to protect sources, but felt that national security considerations along with the evidence that a serious crime had been committed outweighed any right Miller might ordinarily have to protect this source.
The Times also neglected to mention that Fitzgerald knew all along that Miller’s source was I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. He identified Libby in his initial court filings against Miller. The Times dances around speculation that Miller herself might be a target of Fitzgerald’s investigation, and that some feel her refusal to testify might indicate a desire to shield herself rather than Libby. The article does note that some “critics said The Times was protecting not a whistle-blower but an administration campaign intended to squelch dissent.”
Below: AN UNFLATTERING PORTRAIT OF JUDITH MILLER’S REPORTING …
AN UNFLATTERING PORTRAIT OF JUDITH MILLER’S REPORTING
Neither Judith Miller’s personality nor the veracity of her reporting emerge unscathed in the Times article:
On Miller’s uncritical reporting about Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities:
When no evidence was found, her reporting, along with that of some other journalists, came under fire. She was accused of writing articles that helped the Bush administration make its case for war.
“I told her there was unease, discomfort, unhappiness over some of the coverage,” said Roger Cohen, who was foreign editor at the time. “There was concern that she’d been convinced in an unwarranted way, a way that was not holding up, of the possible existence of W.M.D.”
Miller does not defend her reporting:
“W.M.D. – I got it totally wrong,” she said.
But nor does she accept responsibility for the flawed reporting. She suggests, as she has elsewhere, that it is her sources who are to blame, not her failure to question or further investigate the validity of what they were feeding her:
“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.”
“We have everything to be proud of and nothing to apologize for,” Ms. Miller said in the interview Friday.
AND AN UNFLATTERING PORTRAIT OF JUDITH MILLER:
Excerpts from the article:
- Inside the newsroom, she was a divisive figure. A few colleagues refused to work with her.
- “Judy is a very intelligent, very pushy reporter,” said Stephen Engelberg, who was Ms. Miller’s editor at The Times for six years…”
- Douglas Frantz, who succeeded Mr. Engelberg as investigative editor, recalled that Ms. Miller once called herself “Miss Run Amok.” [meaning] “’I can do whatever I want.” [Yet it was not until ten months later, on May 26, 2004 that Executive Editor Bill Keller published] “an editors’ note that criticized some of the paper’s coverage of the run-up to the war. “The note said the paper’s articles on unconventional weapons were credulous. It did not name any reporters and said the failures were institutional. Five of the six articles called into question were written or co-written by Ms. Miller.”
While the Times article does not question Miller’s veracity outright, it is implicit that Miller stretched the truth in at least one instance:
It is not clear why Ms. Miller said in an interview that she “made a strong recommendation to my editor” that the [Plame] story be pursued. “I was told no,” she said. She would not identify the editor
But…
Ms. Abramson, the Washington bureau chief at the time, said Ms. Miller never made any such recommendation.
And when asked about a report in The Washington Post [that] reported that “two top White House officials disclosed Plame’s identity to at least six Washington journalists,” Philip Taubman, Ms. Abramson’s successor as Washington bureau chief, asked Ms. Miller and other Times reporters whether they were among the six. Ms. Miller denied it…. “The answer was generally no,” …Ms. Miller said the subject of Mr. Wilson and his wife had come up in casual conversation with government officials…, Mr. Taubman said, but Ms. Miller said “she had not been at the receiving end of a concerted effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information.”
POOR COVERAGE AND OBSTRUCTION AT THE TIMES”
While the Times article paints a picture of a newspaper working diligently to protect and stand by its reporter, it is clear that the upper hierarchy at the Times was, in the process, consciously protecting a high-level government official who might well have committed a serious crime and compromised national security by outing Valerie Plame.
Miller was subpoenaed by the grand jury in August 2004, and “It was in these early days that Mr. Keller and [Times publisher Arthur] Sulzberger Jr., learned Mr. Libby’s identity.” There can be little doubt that publication of this information could have seriously damaged the Bush administration in the midst of a Presidential campaign. It might well have influenced the outcome of the election. That it was a major news story is undeniable. Yet “neither man asked Ms. Miller detailed questions about her conversations with Mr. Libby.” And “both said they viewed the case as a matter of principle, which made the particulars less important.” “I didn’t interrogate her about the details of the interview,” Mr. Keller said. “I didn’t ask to see her notes. And I really didn’t feel the need to do that,” despite realizing that the case was not ideal: “I wish it had been a clear-cut whistle-blower case. I wish it had been a reporter who came with less public baggage.” “Times lawyers warned company executives that they would have trouble persuading a judge to excuse Ms. Miller from testifying. The Supreme Court decided in 1972 that the First Amendment offers reporters no protection from grand jury subpoenas.”
The case would make its way through the courts for nearly a year while the Times kept its knowledge of a possible criminal conspiracy involving the Vice President’s chief of staff from the public. In fact, the Times went to extraordinary lengths to keep its own reporters from reporting on this story:
While the paper’s leaders were rallying around Ms. Miller’s cause in public, inside The New York Times tensions were growing.
Throughout this year, reporters at the paper spent weeks trying to determine the identity of Ms. Miller’s source. All the while, Mr. Keller knew it, but declined to tell his own reporters…
Even after reporters learned it from outside sources, The Times did not publish Mr. Libby’s name, though other news organizations already had. The Times did not tell its readers that Mr. Libby was Ms. Miller’s source until Sept. 30, in an article about Ms. Miller’s release from jail.
The Times even killed stories that might have shed some light on the case:
In July, Richard W. Stevenson and other reporters in the Washington bureau wrote an article about the role of Mr. Cheney’s senior aides, including Mr. Libby, in the leak case. The article, which did not disclose that Mr. Libby was Ms. Miller’s source, was not published.
Mr. Stevenson said he was told by his editors that the article did not break enough new ground. “It was taken pretty clearly among us as a signal that we were cutting too close to the bone, that we were getting into an area that could complicate Judy’s situation,” he said.
In August, Douglas Jehl and David Johnston, two other Washington reporters, sent a memo to the Washington bureau chief, Mr. Taubman, listing ideas for coverage of the case. Mr. Taubman said Mr. Keller did not want them pursued because of the risk of provoking Mr. Fitzgerald or exposing Mr. Libby while Ms. Miller was in jail
Mr. Taubman said he felt bad for his reporters, but he added that he and other senior editors felt that they had no choice. “No editor wants to be in the position of keeping information out of the newspaper,” Mr. Taubman said.
And even when Judith Miller’s own resolve began to erode, key decision-makers at the Times encouraged her to maintain her resistance:
While [Miller attorney Robert S.] Bennett urged Ms. Miller to test the waters, some of her other lawyers were counseling caution. Mr. Freeman, The Times’s company lawyer, and [Floyd] Abrams worried that if Ms. Miller sought and received permission to testify and was released from jail, people would say that she and the newspaper had simply caved in.
“I was afraid that people would draw the wrong conclusions,” Mr. Freeman said.
Mr. Freeman advised Ms. Miller to remain in jail until Oct. 28, when the term of the grand jury would expire and the investigation would presumably end.
Mr. Bennett thought that was a bad strategy; he argued that Mr. Fitzgerald would “almost certainly” empanel a new grand jury, which might mean Ms. Miller would have to spend an additional 18 months behind bars
Mr. Freeman said he thought Mr. Fitzgerald was bluffing…
Judith Miller apparently felt otherwise fearing an extended incarcerartion: “I realized… at that point, I might really be locked in.” (Clearly this contradicts Miller’s public insistence that she relented only after Fitzgerald accepted her conditions — Jpol).
PRESSURE FROM THE TOP TO CONCEAL:
While the Times article in no way concedes that Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was directing the Times coverage, there can be little doubt where he stood. He knew early on that Miller was protecting Libby.
The editorial page, which is run by Mr. Sulzberger and Gail Collins, the editorial page editor, championed Ms. Miller’s cause. The Times published more than 15 editorials and called for Congress to pass a shield law that would make it harder for federal prosecutors to compel reporters to testify.
Mr. Sulzberger said he did not personally write the editorials, but regularly urged Ms. Collins to devote space to them. After Ms. Miller was jailed, an editorial acknowledged that “this is far from an ideal case,” before saying, “If Ms. Miller testifies, it may be immeasurably harder in the future to persuade a frightened government employee to talk about malfeasance in high places.”
Asked in the interview whether he had any regrets about the editorials, given the outcome of the case, Mr. Sulzberger said no…
It is hard to believe that Sulzberger’s aggressive involvement in the Times’ editorial stance did not spill over into the news coverage (or lack thereof) even though the Times does not suggest that in this article.
The Times leaves the issue of why Miller refused to testify dangling. Miller insists that she thought Libby’s waver was coerced while Libby and his attorney insist it was not, and that they had told Miller’s attorney that from the beginning. Her notes clearly show that she had several meetings and conversations with Libby in which both Joseph Wilson and/or his wife Valerie Plame (or “Flame” in Miller’s notebook) were discussed beginning on June 23, 2003 – two weeks before Wilson publicly challenged the administration’s claim that Saddam had tried to buy yellow cake from Niger.
In at least one instance Floyd Abrams seems to delicately avoid calling his client a liar: “According to Ms. Miller… this was what Mr. Abrams told her about his conversation with Mr. Tate: ‘He was pressing about what you would say. When I wouldn’t give him an assurance that you would exonerate Libby, if you were to cooperate, he then immediately gave me this, ‘Don’t go there, or, we don’t want you there.’ ”
But Abrams version is rather more benign: “On more than one occasion, Mr. Tate asked me for a recitation of what Ms. Miller would say. I did not provide one.”
While Libby and Tate clearly have a vested interest in claiming that they had long ago given Miller a non-coerced waver, the judge in the case clearly agreed from the beginning.:
After the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Ms. Miller made a final plea to Judge Hogan to stay out of jail: “My motive here is straightforward. A promise of confidentiality once made must be respected, or the journalist will lose all credibility and the public will, in the end, suffer.”
Judge Hogan ordered her jailed at Alexandria Detention Center in Northern Virginia until she agreed to testify or the grand jury expired on Oct. 28.
“She has the keys to release herself,” the judge said. “She has a waiver she chooses not to recognize.”
There are reasons to believe that Libby did want Miller to limit her testimony including “a folksy, conversational two-page letter dated Sept. 15” from Libby to Miller that many feel was laced with code, and that Libby apparently never thought would be made public. In it he assures Ms. Miller “that he had wanted her to testify about their conversations all along. ‘I believed a year ago, as now, that testimony by all will benefit all,’ he wrote. And he noted that “the public report of every other reporter’s testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame’s name or identity with me.’ “ He sent it three days after Patrick Fitzgerald urged him to reiterate his waver to Miller in a tangible way.
Even now, it is far from clear that Judith Miller is coming clean either with the Times or with the grand jury:
Where did the name “Valerie Flame” (sic) come from?: “I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall,” she wrote on Friday, recounting her testimony for an article that appears today.
” In two interviews, Ms. Miller generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes.”
”On Oct. 7, shortly before Ms. Miller was to conduct a telephone interview with two Times reporters [she reacted furiously to ] “a four-page memorandum” calling it a “script”…. and nearly canceling the interview…”
Where this story will go from here is anybody’s guess. We have only the assurances of Judith Miller that she is not a target of Fitzgerald’s inquiry and does not face indictment. Miller insists that her stand was justified, if misunderstood: “I’m a reporter. People were confused and perplexed, and I realized then that The Times and I hadn’t done a very good job of making people understand what has been accomplished.”
Many at the Times remain unconvinced: “Everyone admires our paper’s willingness to stand behind us and our work, but most people I talk to have been troubled and puzzled by Judy’s seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls,” said Todd S. Purdum, a Washington reporter for The Times. “Partly because of that, many people have worried about whether this was the proper fight to fight.”
And what of Miller? The Times implies that Miller has a home at the Times, but Raw Story suggests otherwise:
While few are talking to the outside, the newsroom is abuzz with gossip surrounding the case. At least two reporters say they’ve heard that Miller plans to resign after the paper runs their examination… According to the Huffington Post, Miller has inked a $1.2 million deal for a tell-all expose. [The Times confirms that Miller is considering a book, but claims she does not yet have a book contract].
Let’s really try and put this all in perspective.
She is a reporter. Her job is to get facts and report them. Facts have to be sourced or you can’t say you are a reporter and write about them.
Part of the job, eh? Something she should know after decades of writing her drivel form of reporting.
Valerie Plame (Or “Flame”, if you prefer?)… A huge Fact that would have to be sourced in order to write a story she was working on.
So she is writing a story that needs this important fact, but she cannot “recall” the source of it?
Ariana had this to say at HuffPo:
The immaculate deception:
“Duh… I don’t remember!”
For someone that claims she is only as acurate as her sources? And she can’t even remember who her sources are?
Give me an effin’ break!
Sweet Judy Blew Lies
Nice breakdown of all this jpol!
Isn’t it odd that her notes referred to “Valerie Flame” and “Victoria Wilson”? If she was hot on the story, as she claimed to have been by recommending to her editors that they pursue it, why was she so sloppy with the correct name?
And, I need someone to refresh my memory, why are there so many articles via google about “Victoria” Plame which are about “Valerie” Plame. Where did that start?
I just did that google search. Yes, there is page-after-page that comes up when you key in “Victoria Wilson” but they do not seem to relate to this case. I think this was Judith Miller’s unique concoction.
My mistake. Search “Victoria Plame”.
This is really fascinating, and it is a good catch Catnip.
I did that google search, and it appears that Robert Novak was widely quoted as having identified “Victoria Plame” in his July 14, 2003 column (the earliest references I found in a short search were in The National Review. That does not mean it is the original source). I went back to the original and Novak used the name “Valerie,” not “Victoria.” Under normal circumstances we could chalk this up to a typo that simply got picked up by others, but the appearance of the name “Victoria Plame” in Miller’s notes which pre-date
Novak’s column cast doubt on that hypothesis. Was someone leaking the name “Victoria Plame” to people who kept using that name in articles, mistakenly attributing it to Novak???
I think we need to track back the origin of that mistake. I’ll check it out.
You may be right there. It might be nothing, just a typo OR misprint etc., BUT it might lead to something interesting.
Make sure to check the wayback machine! lol
if she went to jail so she wouldn’t have to reveal her source, why then when she got out of the slammer did she say she didn’t know who the source was or couldn’t remember the source? Did Judy cut a deal with Fitzie or can she still be indicted? She is a disgrace. She is a mole that has burrowed herself into the NYTimes as a Bush Pimp to spread Propaganda. Off with her head. The owners and editors or whoever the fuck is in charge of the NYTimes these days should not have their job as of today. This makes Watergate look like that little white speck on top o’ chicken shit. IF BushCo gets a pass on this, the truth will never have a chance ever again. I was right to cancel my NYTimes last year. Rotten to the core. Pathetic.
Can you elaborate on this? I’m not sure what you’re saying here:
Thanks.
Miller all but proclaimed that Fitzgerald had caved and let Miller out of jail on her terms. In fact, it seems that Miller realized that Fitzgerald could keep her locked up for another 18 months if he empaneled a new grand jury and got another contempt judgment against her (not to mention the possibility of “criminal contempt.”). I think it is clear that Miller caved, not Fitzgerald.
I think they both caved: she just wanted to get out of jail and he agreed to a very restricted deal.
Fitzgerald seems to be a very tough prosecutor, and would not agree to something like limiting testimony unless he already knew the answer. My guess is he either 1) knew Judy would commit perjury on the stand; or 2) knows who the second source (other than Libby is) and doesn’t need Judy to establish that. If Judy’s point is to say that she didn’t finger Scooter in her testimony, thereby living up to their agreement, I think she just made things much worse for him.
.
~ Cross-posted from my diary As Time Evolves :: Neocon Think – A DEEP THROAT? ~
After ‘NY Times’ Probe: Keller Must Fire Miller, and Apologize to Readers
As the devastating Times article, and her own first-person account, make clear, Miller should be promptly dismissed for crimes against journalism — and her own paper. And her editor, who has not taken responsibility, should apologize to both readers and “armchair critics.”
By Greg Mitchell
(October 15, 2005) — It’s not enough that Judith Miller, we learned Saturday, is taking some time off and “hopes” to return to the New York Times newsroom. As the newspaper’s devastating account of her Plame games — and her own first-person sidebar — make clear, she should be promptly dismissed for crimes against journalism, and her own newspaper. And Bill Keller, executive editor, who let her get away with it, owes readers, at the minimum, an apology instead of merely hailing his paper’s long-delayed analysis and saying that readers can make of it what they will.
He should also apologize to all the “armchair critics” and “vultures” he denounced this week for spreading unfounded stories and “myths” about what Miller and the newspaper had been up to. If anything, this sad and outrageous story is worse than most expected.
Let’s put aside for the moment Miller exhibiting the same selective memory favored by her former friends and sources in the White House, in claiming that for the life of her she cannot recall how the name of “Valerie Flame” got into the reporter’s notebook she took to her interview with Libby; how she learned about the CIA operative from other sources (whom she can’t name or even recall when it happened).
TimesSelective: Judy-Culpa Raises More Questions Than It Answers …
The first question raised by the Times’ Judy-Culpa and by Judy Miller’s own account is: Who told Judy about Valerie Plame (or “Flame” as the name appears in Judy’s notes)? According to these two pieces, the name was immaculately conceived. “As I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from,” Miller writes.
When the Plame case broke open in July 2003, these notes were presumably no more than a few weeks old. But who had revealed Plame’s name was not seared on Miller’s mind?
This is as believable as Woodward and Bernstein not recalling who Deep Throat was. It also means that Judy went to jail to protect a source she can’t recall.
Update: Not Since Geraldo Cracked Open that Vault…
Now that I have spent a few hours absorbing this latest installment in the ongoing soap opera “Desperate Editors,” I can safely say that not since Geraldo cracked open Al Capone’s vault has there been a bigger anticlimax or a bigger sham. After all, the question everybody has been asking is: who was the source who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity to Judy Miller?
And the answer? She can’t remember.
Not Rove-Libby!!!! ◊ by Maccabee @dKos
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Oui, if there was a contest and you won and the reward was to be able to name this scandle something besides ‘Plamegate’ what would you choose?
.
I consider the whole affair after 911 a reign of FEAR, LIES & DECEIT, which has undermined the American Way of Life, Its Values, Democracy and an Abuse of the American People. The invasion and occupation of Iraq as highlight of the Neocon policy with absolute low point the Abu Ghraib torture.
The buck stops where leadership was supposed to be seated: Oval Office of the White House, thus President Bush and his gang. They conned the World community and the American people, to combine these two elements, my quick choice would be: BushConGate.
Especially as I hope it somehow will lead to his impeachment, even if it takes the IRS to catch GWB on tax evasion!
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Thank you..for your insightful posts and ‘BushConGate’-
What this story makes very clear is that Judy Miller will not be welcome at the New York Times. Since getting fired would not enhance the amount of her book contract as getting jailed did, she will simply not return after her leave.
After all the Times did and said, this is fairly dramatic. There may be more heads to roll before it’s over.
As for what these stories say about the investigation, I’d agree with those who suggest both Libby and Miller are hurt, with Libby now more on the hook for possible obstruction than revealing the Plame name. However, Fitzgerald’s questions doubtlessly tie in with what he’s learned from other testimony and evidence, so he may have gotten what he needed to establish a pattern of illegal activity in the campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson.
Finally, the item that first jumped out at me is now the lead in an early Reuters story on the Times stories: Fitzgerald asked about Cheney’s involvement. That sure didn’t come out of left field, not at this late date.
The grand jury needs a different level of evidence to indict than a jury does to convict. For a criminal conviction the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. The grand jury only has to find that there is a good chance that the charges apply. Right? What do the legal types out there say?
If so, it seems clear to me that Libby will be indicted. All of Judy’s dancing around doesn’t erase the suspicion that he divulged information he shouldn’t have or pressured her to lie for him.
The standard may be different, but I doubt Fitzgerald will go for indictments if he doesn’t think he has the evidence to convict. Prosecutors like to win their cases.
The Miller revelations blow at least one big hole in the official White House line which is that their attacks on Wilson were designed to set the record straight regarding the role of VP Cheney after Wilson’s July 6, 2003 NYT op-ed piece. Miller’s testimony and notes clearly reveal that Libby, at least, was on the attack at least two weeks before that piece appeared. I see a minimum of a perjury charge there, but Fitzgerald probably has much more.
I happen to agree with you on that one. This whole facade was being put into place before Wilson even came out. NOw what is the reason for this? I suspect that the WH and primarily Cheney knew that Wilson knew the truth and why. These ppl are dangerous and they had to prove that they knew what they were doing in order to go to war inthe frist damn place.
When their bubble was burst, they had to grab for straws which was not convient when the DSM’s came out either. WHIG ppl were in on that DSM’s and they knew this and had to be quiet for this all along. Why do you think M. Matlin quit when she did…it was really getting hot in the kitchen by then.
One question is why is Judith Miller talking about Wilson’s wife with Libby on June 23, when Wilson’s piece attacking the credibility of the administration does not appear until July 6? Maybe Cheney and Rove are trying to put pressure on Wilson: shut up or we will blow your wife’s cover and put her in danger. And maybe Miller was supposed to be the go-between and report this threat (not couched as a threat, of course) to Kristof and then he would pass it on to Wilson. When did Kristof’s article which used Wilson as an unamed source appear? It would be interesting to see that article.
I can’t access it, because the user name and password that I got from Mary Scott O’Connor’s blog has been shut down at the NY Times site. Anyone else notice that?
Kristof’s column ran on May 6, 2003.
archive, even though it is referred to in an article from June 13, 2003 that I accessed and bought. Strange. Anyway the June 13 article is very interesting. I am going to try and link it here
Kristof lays out the story of the forged document about the supposed Niger-Iraq deal on yellow-cake uranium very clearly. It refers to Wilson only as a former ambassador to Africa and refers to other sources of Kristof in the intelligence community.
Does Kristof have any role in this? Is he friends with Miller or just a co-worker? Is he friends with Wilson. Obviously he talked to him then.
article. See here
It also is interesting and features our very own Patrick Lang. Hmm. . . I don’t know what to make of all this. Maybe there is nothing to make of it.
MSO commented that people have been using the account to purchase articles, which are charged to her, so I guess that would be the reason.
I don’t know about legal types… But what about from the Grand Jury point of view?
Check out this from emmajoe…
It will answer some questions for you, I think? lol
and it is very good. As it points out: “the grand jury is not responsible for determining whether the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but only whether there is sufficient evidence of probable cause to justify bringing the accused to trial.”
I am a firm believer that which goes around, comes around and this seems to be hitting Miller right smack dab on the top of her head.
She has never been credible, as far as I am concerned.
She is a thief in the night and she is a warmonger and a whoremonger to boot. This is not a good thing to have on staff at the Grey Lady and if they have any sense about themselves, they would get rid of her in a heart beat for their own good.
I think the editors at the NYT’s have known this about Judy for a very long time but have made money thru politics from her and this is what they always were after firstly, anyhow…the $$$ is the first thing anyone thinks of when in business and they knew she would bring it their way, to heck with credibility.
Yes, Judy is a mole for this WH and always was a mole for what ever she was doing and got it done with what ever asset she saw fit to use to get the information. What a hack!!!!!! The fact she is trying to make things look like she is the one who calls the shots instead of Fitz, is always how she works….twists and misinforms ppl and organizations to simply get her way like a spoiled brat..she fits right in with this crew at the WH, if you ask me. Makes me wonder who the hell is she screwing at the NYT to have done such a bad thing to them.
Nothing about what Judith Miller says will make any sense unless we realize that she is a foot soldier and a true believer in the agenda of the PNAC traitors in the Bush administration ( people such as Richard Perle, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith and others)and the corresponding figures in the Sharon administration.Because she is a true believer, she also subscribes to the Straussian notion that us Untermenschen need not be told the truth.This is why it is possible for her to feign writing Valerie Plame’s name as “Valerie Flame”, a lapse that is a dead giveaway that she is attempting to give herself plausible deniability.
Given the level of mendacity emanating from the NYT, I am sure that this entire enterprise to discredit Ambassador Wilson was a cooperative venture between the Times, the Bush administration and the PNAC stragglers.True to her status as a believer,she has expressed no remorse that her lies, sanctified by the august impostors at the NYT, has led to the deaths of many innocent victims in Iraq and the U.S.
After trying to absorb all I can about these two articles, I have a general reaction: While there are some juicy tidbits in it all (like Miller agreeing to give Libby a false anonymous cover), they really don’t tell us much. And that is simply because anything related to the GJ case in these articles is exactly what Miller wants us to know. Nothing more and nothing less. What we’ve got is Judy’s spin on it all. What we have to wait for – what do Fitz and the GJ know? Now thats what I’m anxious to hear.
guess you are right on that one…:o)
Concentrate on the scandal.
You are getting sleepy.
this is the way it is ….:o)….now when I count to 5, you will wake up…1–2–3–3 1/2—4–4 1/4, 3 1/8,,,whoops here I go again…trying to make it hard to understand again….:o)
From SUsan Hu: “If Ms. Miller testifies, it may be immeasurably harder in the future to persuade a frightened government employee to talk about malfeasance in high places.”
It may also be harder for a reporter whose is really a government plant to put false stories in the newspaper…to reveal those sources. Doesn’t sound like she had to reveal she was planting stories in the paper for the government and I would like to know why.
Too bad Susan Hu doesn’t work for the New York Times. She’s better than Judy could ever be.
Whoops, I thought Susan Hu wrote this Jpol wrote this. Goes for both of them, too bad they don’t work for the NYTimes.
I think we all knew that Miller was not worthy of the name of Journalist, at least not in the time-honored sense. It had not been clear how low she had sunk. I don’t think we know her real motives. Is she really a neocon cultist? Was she in it for the money, the career moves? All we know is that she grossly betrayed her calling, and we’ll probably never know the exact composition of her 30 pieces of silver.
But there are plenty of corrupt reporters out there. What’s heartbreaking to me is the venal complicity of the Times publisher and editors in choosing asscovering and servility over responsibility and truthfulness. The NYT really was a great institution despite its many flaws. I’m not sure it can regain the trust that it built up over a century. The resignation or firing of Sulzberger and all of Plame’s editors — following a much more intense and independent investigation — looks like the paper’s only hope.
beyond the Wilsons, and acting on much more than revenge. Their cause clearly stood to gain if there was less contradictory information from the CIA in the future. Clearly they’ve since downgraded it and relied more and more on Pentagon intelligence.
The Wilsons may have stepped in front of some kind of program that was already in motion.