> [NYT] seem to be doing all they can to smear Miller to deflect their own corporate culpability.
Judy comes across as scatterbrained, obsessed and unprofessional in the stories of the last week. I am beginning to wonder if she isn't really an unwitting pawn in a larger conspiracy hatched by Times bigs. And if that isn't where Fitzgerald ought to be investigating.
Were the stories in the NY Times? or one of it's many puppet papers?
She may be a dunce, but she's also a little out of the Times' mainstream Bush bashing agenda, so maybe they are just seizing an opportunity to throw her to the wolves and make themselves look good.
Actually, and disturbing to me, Miller is not at all scatterbrained. She is a Pulitzer winner, and some interviews I have heard, former co-workers , even those pissed at her personally, describe her as uncommonly competent, particularly in this particular field.
For so competent a woman to then testify before the grand jury that she could not remember to whom some of her own notes refer is just too convenient.
My theory is that Judith Miller's "source" revealing Plame was Judith Miller. The two women operate in a small group of people with top level expertise on the subject. I have no evidence, but I believe, just because it hangs together logically, that Miller knew about Plame's employment as a matter of general background that one comes to know in a small community of professionals. Once the story broke, she had to invent a "source" to avoid admitting that she had "outed" Plame, not that the revalation was really that big a deal.
Plame was once, several years ago, a genuine undercover operative in Europe, but the impression given by the press of someone endangered by being "outed" is rubbish. She has worked at Langley as an analyst for about five years. She took no pains to conceal her employer, and has on occasion met friends in the Langley cafeteria.
Miller's stay in jail did not cost her pay or position, in fact earned her near beatification in the press corps. Assuming, as I do, that she wanted to sidestep close scutiny of her "source", that was an effective way to do just that. Three months later, her waffling answers to the grand jury are pretty well buried behind the smoke and mirrors put out during her paid "leave of absence".
Helps to remember, the Novak column that started this sh*tstorm was actually focused on the question of nepotism, ie that Miller had used her position to get her husband appointed to the yellowcake inquiry in Niger. By the way, hubby's infamous report of his inquiry did claim Iraq had not obtained actual product, but clearly stated that Iraq had for some time been trying to obtain back-channel, undocumented ore.
I suspect there's a conspiracy here, but that it was hatched at the CIA. The NYT helped it along, but they are such reliable Bush haters that they could be counted on to do their part without direct involvement.