In today’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd admits that she “always liked Judy Miller”; “her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur – never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types”, Dowd wrote. But, the fawning stops there.
After listing Miller’s many failures: her non-stop ego, her complete lack of discipline, her inability to obey her superiors, her devotion and defense of Ahmed Chalabi – even in the face of public knowledge about his lies, her contempt and disregard for her editors and colleagues, her questionable journalistic ethics, her outright lies, and her stonewalling of Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation, Dowd rightly concludes:
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover “the same thing I’ve always covered – threats to our country.” If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.
The sharks are circling all around Judith Miller and, unless there is some divine intervention from wherever divine intervention comes from for her, it looks like it’s time to stick a fork in her. She’s done.
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It’s just unimaginable that Miller can return to the NYT newsroom from her current leave of absence to find anyone who will continue to support her.
Editor Bill Keller’s memo to his staff on Friday stuck a few knives in her and twisted them without restraint. The reporters who worked on her story for last weekend’s NYT article about the Miller affair were not even given access to her notes or more details that would have clarified what happened. And even the neocons in the White House won’t be able to save her now. And she should not be saved.
Judith Miller deserves no more than to become a footnote in the history books as a reporter who sold her soul to the devil – and lost.
