Judith Miller: Double Agent for Neocons

Judith Miller - Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, martyr at the altar of freedom of press, the pro-Israel right-wing neocon, chief WMD "smoking gun" expert for Iraq.... will the real Judith Miller please stand up?

Judith Miller earned her stripes as a reporter in Iraq. The "evidence" she collected about the stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq, she kindly shared with us night after night in show after show from NBC to PBS. To jog your memory, an excerpt from Judith Miller's conversation with Jim Lehrer:

"I think they found something more than a 'smoking gun.' What they've found is what is being called here by the members of MET Alpha — that's Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha — what they found is a silver bullet in the form of a person, an Iraqi individual — a scientist, as we've called him — who really worked on the programs, who knows them firsthand, and who has led MET Team Alpha people to some pretty startling conclusions[...] The scientist, who has been cooperating with MET Alpha, has actually said that he participated in — he kind of watched, you know, a warehouse being burned that contained potentially incriminating biological equipment. So clearly what Saddam Hussein wanted to do was cover his weapons of mass destruction tracks." [Read more

So, now when Judith has problems recalling her meeting with Libby, I find it supremely hard to believe. After all, if she had no problem recalling fake events, how hard will it be for her to recall real events?

FAIR (Fairness in reporting organization) shares my surprise,

So the real question is where did Miller first hear about Valerie Plame Wilson? She claims she cannot remember. She can only surmise--according to her own vague notes--that the name "Valerie Flame" appeared in her notes based not on her conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to vice president Dick Cheney, but "from another source" whom she "could not recall." [Read more]

"Miller's inability to remember details of her conversations beyond the words written in her notebook--an unusual memory deficit for a professional journalist, to say the least--is a striking feature of her account. Later in her article, she states: "Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I could recall discussing the Wilson-Plame connection with other sources. I said I had, though I could not recall any by name or when those conversations occurred." Later, she says that after her second conversation with Libby, she "might have called others about Mr. Wilson's wife"--but apparently can't be sure"

Article Author: Spincycle

Spincycle is interested in questions around media, governance, and political economy. He strongly values reading good fiction for he feels that it imparts the important value of empathy.

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