Judith Miller, (while being held out by the right-wing as the Rosa Parks of the just-discovered "press freedom" movement), is really nothing more than a stool pigeon, who sat in jail to cover up evidence of a crime. A crime that her friends in the Bush administration have carried out in the run up to the Iraq War.
Those friends, key members of the "culture of corruption" in Washington, may have committed additional criminal acts, which go beyond the scope of merely leaking the undercover status of CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution against her husband Joseph Wilson.
The press, (like drunks being easily distracted by a shiny object dangled by their right-wing masters), have failed to ask the obvious questions. It simply does not make sense to claim that Miller's source in the Plame-leak matter, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, released her completely from her obligation to conceal his identity before she went to prison. Miller will now have us believe that because of a simple misunderstanding with Libby, she sat in jail for three months --only to emerge now, the misunderstanding cleared up.
It is apparent that the deal she cut with Patrick Fitzgerald had EVERYTHING to do with why she will now cooperate in the probe and NOTHING to do with a simple misunderstanding with Scooter. Why was limiting the scope of her testimony to ONLY matters regarding the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity the deal breaker?
It is obvious --because she has information of criminality beyond that of the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity and it implicates her neo-con cronies in the Bush administration. She does not want to implicate other neo-cons, (after all, like the aspens they are all connected at the roots), but she has agreed to cooperate in this specific matter because she doesn't want to stay in jail forever.
Article comments
1 - Len
Judy Miller speaking to Lou Dobbs:
"I didn't want to be in jail, but I knew that the principle of confidentiality was so important that I had to, because if people can't trust us to come to us to tell us the things that government and powerful corporations don't want us to know, we're dead in the water. The public won't know. That's why I was sitting in jail. For the public's right to know."
Judy was protecting the government! She spent months telling us what they wanted us to know about WMDs, and they were all lies. And she was protecting those same sources this time. What a disgrace.
2 - lib1
Too bad other journalists don't see her imprisonment like you to. Exactly!!! She is acting like the hero of journalism while protecting a criminal. What a joke! If the job of a journalist is to inform the public, she is obligated to let us know what the heck is going on in the white house, not cooperating with their cover up; not protecting their illegal activities. This is so totally up-side-down.
3 - Les Slater
This post by Balletshooz is not only pure speculative nonsense, but is reactionary through and through.
He is preoccupied by his reactionary belief that neocon is behind U.S. policy. This is not only a right-wing fantasy, quite popular in liberal and leftist circles these days, but is fundamentally anti-Semitic.
Most of the neocon crap in circulation is traceable to Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, retired USAF intelligence officer. She published an article in Lyndon LaRouche’s “Executive Intelligence Review” and several internet essays which she alleges a “neocon” conspiracy in the Bush administration seeking to leverage the full might of the “United States to build a greater Zion”.
It is alleged that the Likud has taken over the Pentegon. Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker article last year as well as Edaward Kennedy’s speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, also last year, used Kwiatkowski as a resource.
The right wing, including Patrick Buchanan, as well as most of the left see her as their darling.
Another variant of this is put forward by the right, including LaRouche’s antiwar.com, alleges that followers of Jewish Leon Trotsky have taken over the Bush White House.
The right has been the standard bearer of anti-Semitism. It has now sunk deep roots into the left as well.
4 - Lumpy
Miller was NOT protecting a journalistic source, because she was never assigned to write about the 'yellowcake' story or Ambassador Wilson. (Miller is not a columnist, she writes on topics that she is assigned to by her editor).
Miller claiming journalistic privelege was a cop-out and I am glad that a lot of people aren't buying it
5 - Scott Butki
Most journalists I know, and I know and read many, hardly consider Miller a press freedom.
As for the "Rosa parks of..." it's funny you say that because in my Rosa Parks reflection piece I link to a Sarah Vowell piece about the annoying habit of people calling others the Rosa Parks of this, or of that.
6 - Dave Nalle
BS, have you ever considered linking to a fact or a bit of evidence to support your bizarre surmises?
Dave
7 - Scott Butki
By BS - you mean bullet
as opposed to SB?