An Activist, Not a Journalist
The two articles that came out Sunday in the New York Times paint a picture of an out of control Judith Miller, more interested in helping her ideological soul mates in the Bush Administration rather than fulfilling her obligations as a reporter.
First, it appears that Miller kept going back to a beat where she had regurgitated the neo-con talking points: foreign affairs:
Within a few weeks, in one of his first personnel moves, Mr. Keller told Ms. Miller that she could no longer cover Iraq and weapons issues. Even so, Mr. Keller said, “she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm.”
As Josh Marshall points out, one of the articles she wrote in this time period was about the Oil for Food scandal. And the source for the most lurid accusations — now largely dismissed – was none other than Ahmad Chabali. So Miller put the lies of Chabali about WMDs and the Oil for Food program into the New York Times, with no editorial repercussions.
Second, it is clear the Miller is still protecting her sources and friends in the Administration:
In two interviews, Ms. Miller generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes.
She is out of legal jeopardy, she is legally free to tell her story, she has first hand information regarding one of the most explosive stories of the Bush Administration, and she refuses to co-operate with the reporters and editors at her own newspaper. There is no reason for this other than to protect her friends and ideological soul mates in the Bush Administration.
Third, there is the matter of her alleged security clearance:
Having now waded through The Time’s articles on Judy Miller, one new fact struck me as particularly bizarre — Miller, by her own admission, was cleared to see secret information as part of her assignment as an “embedded” reporter in Iraq.
I had no idea journalists could receive security clearances — and I had no idea that the mainstream media would allow their reporters to have such clearances. After all, one of the most important obligations of a person receiving security clearances is not to reveal that information at any time, while one of the most important obligations of a reporter is precisely to reveal information the public has a need and right to know.
Anything Miller learned as a result of her security clearance could never be revealed to the public. In the act of accepting the security clearance, Miller was practically giving up her role as a reporter. After all, it would be difficult to separate what she learned through her security clearance and what she learned through the normal process of reporting on senior officials. Accepting that security clearance was, again, a betrayal of her obligation to the editors and readers of the New York Times. Anyone who saw themselves as a reporter first would never have accepted that clearance.
Finally, we have the issue of Miller’s apparent lies to protect Libby Scooter. As Kevin Drum explains, it seems incredible that Miller could not remember who gave her the name Valerie Plame:
For what it’s worth, I just want to point out that Judith Miller’s contention that she can’t remember who originally provided her with the name “Valerie Flame” is completely ridiculous. She apparently wrote down the name in her notebook sometime around July 8, 2003, and obviously she knew where it came from at the time. Within a week, Robert Novak had written his infamous column in which he outed Valerie Plame, and Miller certainly hadn’t forgotten who provided her the name that quickly. A couple of days later all hell broke loose, and that would have etched the name of her source in her mind permanently.
Miller’s excuse for her forgetfulness is that “It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses.” But it’s not a matter of Miller not remembering a trivial detail two years after the fact. It’s a question of whether she remembered it a week after the fact.
Again, it seems very clear that Miller is actively protecting her friends and ideological soul mates inside the Bush Administration. Throughout this incident Miller has acted, not as a reporter, but as a participant, as if she had a stake in protecting the Bush Administration. Combined with her overly credulous and almost entirely erroneous WMD reporting, it seems clear that the Bush Administration has had a ringer at the New York Times. When the history of the Bush Administration is written, one of its signature accomplishments will be the greatest propaganda coup in American history: place one of the ideological fellow travelers in position to slant the coverage of the Administration on two of the most important issues of the day.