I can’t recall Steve Roberts (Cokie’s hubby) being this blunt. Roberts, who worked for the NYT for 25 years, usually soft-pedals as a substitute host and commentator on NPR’s Diane Rehm show. From this morning’s Reliable Sources (transcript) hosted by the WaPo’s Howard Kurtz on CNN:
KURTZ: Steve Roberts, you worked with Judy Miller for many years. She has a letter that I referred to in this morning’s paper. She says, “‘The Times’ misconstrued my reasons for finally agreeing to testify by quoting with approval the self-serving statements of Libby’s lawyer.”
How do you explain the way she views herself here, the gap between that and the apparent anger at her by many people who were at “The Times” and who used to work at “The Times?”
STEVE ROBERTS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: You know, I think there is a parallel between Judith Miller and Mary Mapes, your guest on the first half-hour here, Howard. Both of them are convinced that they were right and everybody else was wrong.
And I think that Miller — the single biggest mistake Judy Miller made was the same mistake Mary Mapes made. She wanted this story to be true true.
KURTZ: This being the WMD story.
ROBERTS: The WMD story. I think she protected Scooter Miller — Scooter Libby not just as a confidential source, but as part of a group of people who were arguing the same line that she favored and wanted to defend.
I think she made the exact same mistake as Mary Mapes. She ran through the stop signs because she in her heart wanted this story to be true.
……..
ROBERTS: And I think also that — I think she’s right, there was lingering resentment there, Howie. But it’s not just for these stories.
Judy Miller called herself Miss Run Amuck. Judy Miller for years has operated outside the rules of “The New York Times.”
KURTZ: Well, I mean, she was your editor at one point. Was she difficult to work with?
ROBERTS: Impossible to work with.
KURTZ: Why so?
continued below:
ROBERTS: And she herself has admitted she was a terrible editor. And she was right about that, at least.
KURTZ: Why was she impossible to work with?
ROBERTS: Because she was very high strung, very nervous, very uncertain and mercurial. The worst kind of person to have as an editor. What you need is steady calmness.
But beyond that, she always traded on her friendships with the publishers of “The New York Times.” She always did not play by the same rules everybody else did.
The same mistake they made with Jayson Blair they made with Judy Miller. If you allow someone to operate outside the checks and balances, outside the editorial procedures, outside the normal bounds of responsibility, you’re going to run into trouble.
They did not learn that lesson with Jayson Blair, and it came back to bite them with Judy Miller again.
Full transcript.
Predatory narcissists like Miller always behave this way. According to the set of delusions inherent in their pathology, they themselves are never required to be held accountable for their actions, or be held to the same standards under the law as everyone else. they exists in a permanent illusory cloud of their own “specialness”. They are pathogically incapable of acknowledging or accepting responsibility for their own mistakes or errors in judgment, and anytime they appear to do so it is because they are blaming someone else for whatever the main problem might be, and only allowing for themselves that they were “mistaken” to trust the others whom they ultimately blame for their own trouble.
Miller is a basket case of severe, clinical behavioral and emotional problems. Nothing she says now originates in a reality-based perception. Her words are functionally meaningless.
I think it’s a bit unfair to compare Miller to Mapes. While it’s true that Mapes may have wanted to believe the TANG documents, (and, even now there’s no real evidence to suggest that the substance of those documents is not essentially true), Miller’s front page articles in the runup to the Iraq invasion, articles which dispensed completely false info, contributed ultimately to the deaths of many thousands of people. no such thing occured with the Mapes produced story.
Both Mapes and Miller were betrayed by the editorial boards who had enabled them to put their stories forward. But Miller has a ong and ugly history of using emotional blackmail and other coercive tactics to intimidate and ultimately gain control over her superiors at the NYT while Mapes, as far as Iknow, has no such “run amok” history at CBS.
Excellent point.
I wish one of us here would get Mapes’ book, read it, and tell us her story.
Or i’ll look up some book reviews, such as Salon’s, and see what they have to say.
One review says:
Your entire first paragraph here on “predatory narcissists” made me think of another individual who fits this description almost to a “T”: George W. Bush. Let’s tally it up: not required to be held accountable or to the same standards as others; incapable of accepting responsibility; only mistakes are of being too trusting of others, who were the ones who made the errors.
Perhaps that has something to do with why Miller was able to thrive for several years during the Bush Administration — our expectations have become severely distorted.
I’m sorry, but someone has to say this.
When Judy’s photo flashed up finally, my reaction was exactly like John Belushi’s in the movie “Animal House” when “Flounder’s” photo flashed up on the projector screen.
Susan, where did you did this photo up from? A halloween costume party in Paoli? My God, what an unflattering photo!
As for the posting, I think many a war whooper, Congressperson, Senator, and Pentagon brasshat was just like Judy; they wanted the stories to be true.
We were lied to. Judy is one of the liars. I think a study of the rules covering what a war criminal is by the standards of the I.C.C. should be done in Judy’s case. I don’t think she has immunity or protection from charges related to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I just looked in Yahoo’s image search .. everyone uses that flattering self-portrait she so obviously loves.
This was an AP photo from the October Congressional hearings at which she testified.
Goodness, that picture frightened me when the front page opened up. I’m glad no small children were around (though our beagle did leave the room rather quickly…I think I’ll go check on him)!
I can’t decide if Miller is a pathetic stooge, self-deluded, evil, or mentally ill. Either way, her reputation is completely shot. She needs to own up to what she did and move on with her life.
nearly killed myself choking trying to laugh at that.
Yeah. People like Judy own up to things right AFTER
–hell freezes over
–sun stops shining
–last person on earth
–return next ice age
and so forth. Having known a few myself. After a while, you typecast people like that, completely give up on them, and move on — because they do NOT.
I found that Miller photo somewhere too and have posted it in comments a few times as I think it more accurately reflects her true nature than any of the others out there.
In the same spirit, here’s my favorite pic of the demon Cheney. Cheney of course, like Miller, is far more odious and repulsive in reality than the picture portrays, but this shot does do him such justice, at least.
“the demon Cheney”?
You mean, I assume, Cheney the Coward.
Psst. Pass it on.
Coward indeed!
Predators like him are always cowards.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd
His face was saved by his Libby man
Who never thereafter was heard of again
He trod a path that few have trod
Did Cheney Todd
The Demon Barber of K Street.
I am hereby officially begging forgiveness of Stephen Sondheim.
Sorry for this interruption, but there’s not open thread up right now.
On C-Span 2 right now is Janis Karpinski, who wrote “One Woman’s Story.” She’s the woman who was demoted from her position in charge of Military Police after the Abu Gharib story came out.
I saw most of it last night, and its really interesting. I’d love to hear if anyone has a perspective on her story. She’s pretty damning in her account of everyone from Miller to Bremer and others.
Now this is amazing.
Steve Roberts is a media whore, too. Him and Cokie.
Both had conflicts of interest pointed out to them by ABC bigwigs and in an old PBS documentary, “Why America Hates the Press.”
Cokie is still a shill for GOopers. Believe it.
This is like one whore complaining that another whore is getting too much play when they both use the same strategies.
Please. Remember where these comments are coming from.
I agree
Here’s the proof. <From the transcript of 1996’s “Why America Hates the Press”:<p>
The documentary is nine years old, and this was in reference to the big tobacco lobby stuff going on then during Clinton’s administration. However, I don’t think the couple has stopped ‘hoe-ing.’ They are shills for whomever, especially for the Beltway yescritters. And Cokie is the daughter of the late Hale Boggs of Louisiana, who knew when to pick up a check for just about anything.
Pot-kettle-black.
Yes, the press and politicians and business are really operating as a unit. Conflicts are really internal and reported as if they were seen from the outside. There is no separation. Politicians are dependent on business and the press on politicians and so on.
I don’t see any hope here. Only economic collapse could bring about a change and that’s not really something to look forward to.
No one can escape the misinformation unscathed. Everything is so convoluted and it takes too much time to unravel. Even the blogs are very confused with one foot unwittingly in the corporate mainstream view of the world and the other foot with no firm ground to place it on.
Excellent post. I think this type of corporate buy-out of columnists (and some academics) would be worth a full-scale book. I remember the first time that I learned that some friends of mine in academe were getting ten to fifteen grand a pop for speaking to corporate audiences. (I’m so happy when someone gives me an honorarium of $1500). Once a journalist is on that teat, it is impossible to let go. Money does talk.
My reaction, too: Steve Roberts criticizing a right-wing reporter? Wow, did the sun rise in the west this morning?
As for Cokie . . . ick. If I hear her dulcet tones on the radio, I immediately turn it off because nothing–nothing–she says is believable.
This is like one whore complaining that another whore is getting too much play when they both use the same strategies.
Of course the exact same description applies to Howie Kurtz so it’s one whore mediating another whore married to a whore while complaining about…whores.
Such is the state of journalism in the United States.
…stuff about some of his wife’s work as well though…
In Mape’s case, the story was true.
There was an abundance of fully vetted documents online all released through FOIA requests. But that would have meant sharing credit so Mapes allowed herself to get played by Republican operatives and by biting on a clever forgery blew the whole story.
Everything was lined up. Bush was toast once people actually looked at the documentation. And to put it politely Mapes fucked the whole thing up and took Dan Rather down besides. She could not have done more damage if she tried.
Because the new “document”, while really adding nothing of substance, allowed her to claim an “exclusive”. Thanks Mary.
http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/document.htm
“The Military Records of GWB”
Roberts is hardly one to talk. He has always served the status quo.
Back in 1968 I was working for a group called the Coalition for an Independent Candidacy (CIC) in New York. We were attempting to put Eugene McCarthy on the New York ballot as an independenyt presidential candidate after the Chicago travesty they tried to call the Democratic Convention. I was representing the group on a radio program and Steve Roberts showed up. He had been “covering” our campaign for the Times. His coverage, what there was of it, was all negative and rarely, if ever, accurate.
I was pretty young, and Roberts sat me down and started to lecture me about the importance of the two-party system and how I should basically get with the program and forget about third party movements.
I challenged him and asked him how he could justify covering third-party politics for the Times given his open hostility toward working outside the two-party system (and his stories reflected his bias, just as Judy Miller’s did). Roberts was extremely patronizing, and he saw no conflict between holding these views and reporting on the subject.
When I see Roberts on the Sunday news shows today, nearly forty years later, he is still smug and still holds his eletist views.
I agree with his criticismx of Miller, but I think he is a pot calling the kettle black.
What an experience, Jerry!
Whenever I’ve heard him, he’s toed the line. That’s why his comments this morning about Judith Miller stood out so much.
If I’d had time before we left to see my mom, I would have tried to trackback his comments about Miller over the past three years. For example, I wonder what he said before Miller went to jail — was he one of the ones whining about the freedom of the press?
for it, they would, Susan.
Same with Roberts. He’s just seeing an opportunity to sh*t on the body, and to make points. Has anybody seen him say anything reserving judgment about Miller’s NYT coverage before she got the heave?
Has he cleaned his own house yet? And Cokie? Hell, no.
Not that I don’t think his remarks aren’t interesting, but through these lenses, he’s late for the train.
Mary Mapes. Judith Miller was a war pimp, Mary Mapes supposedly was handed reproduced documents instead of originals (seems the jury is still out on where they originated or whether indeed they were fake.) A 60 Minutes TV program is a minor operetta compared with the carnage going on in Iraq. I enjoyed the rest of what he had to say though.
I am very interested in this
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