So much has been written on Judy Miller. A journalist's main drive is to print the truth as he or she finds it. For Miller, her motives are all over the place. What is clear is that finding the truth was low on her list. It is clear she was more interested in being a celebrity than a journalist. It looks like she was more in business to trade information than she was in publishing it. Why else wouid she know so much about the Valerie Plame scandal, yet publish nothing about it.
The result is another big black eye for the New York Times, although they probably don't know it yet. The biggest question, so far, is what was Judy Miller protecting if the source she was protecting didn't want to be protected and gave everybody, including her, a release to talk to the prosecutor?
AS I understand journalism and anonymous sources, nobody talks. That's why you go to jail. Your source doesn't want you to talk, that's why you go to jail. If the source talks, or doesn't care if you talk, there is no need to go to jail.
More:
So what are we to think of Judy Miller and the New York Times now? Either the New York Times is in on Miller's game or they are completely ignorant. Why else would she be having a steak dinner with the publisher last night?
Joe Hagan and John D. McKinnon write in the Wall Street Journal: "Reached last night, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of the Times, said, 'I can confirm that Judy Miller is out.' He declined to elaborate except to say the reporter was 'enjoying a steak at dinner, which you are interrupting.' "
And I'm not the only one asking questions. From Editor and Publisher:
Why wasn't Libby's personal waiver allowing her to testify (granted a year ago, he says) not good enough for Miller when it was good enough for numerous other embattled journos in this case? Why the sudden change of heart on her part?
Ariana Huffington asks:
What made her refuse Libby's waiver when it was first offered but accept it now? (Especially since Judge Hogan had told Miller that "she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she `alleges she is protecting' had already released her from her promise of confidentiality.")
I also like Ariana's other line:
The truth of the matter is there is no way that the New York Times editorial claiming "it should be clear...that Ms. Miller is not going to change her mind" can be squared with Ms. Miller changing her mind. And there is no way to accept at face value Miller's grandstanding about "fighting for the cause of the free flow of information." Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?
There are others. And the other question is why is the prosecutor going to accept Miller's "edited" notes? Others point out that at first, Miller said there were no notes.
At this point, does anybody remember "Absence of Libel?" It seems that Miller and the White House have concocted a real-life plot that rivals the 1980s movie. We may have to bring in Wilford Brimley for an encore. Unless Patrick Fitzgerald is Wilford Brimley.