The Miller Mess: Lingering Issues Among the Answers

NY Times ^ | October 23, 2005 | BYRON CALAME

[neverdem]

The Public Editor

THE good news is that the bad news didn't stop The New York Times from publishing a lengthy front-page article last Sunday about the issues facing Judith Miller and the paper, or from pushing Ms. Miller to give readers a first-person account of her grand jury testimony.

The details laid out in the commendable 6,200-word article by a special team of reporters and editors led by the paper's deputy managing editor answered most of my fundamental questions. At issue, of course, was Ms. Miller's refusal to divulge her confidential sources to the grand jury investigating who had leaked the identity of a C.I.A. undercover operative. But the article and Ms. Miller's account also uncovered new information that suggested the journalistic practices of Ms. Miller and Times editors were more flawed than I had feared.

The Times must now face up to three major concerns raised by the leak investigation: First, the tendency by top editors to move cautiously to correct problems about prewar coverage. Second, the journalistic shortcuts taken by Ms. Miller. And third, the deferential treatment of Ms. Miller by editors who failed to dig into problems before they became a mess.

To begin considering the handling of Ms. Miller and this whole episode, it is necessary to step back more than two years. Ms. Miller may still be best known for her role in a series of Times articles in 2002 and 2003 that strongly suggested Saddam Hussein already had or was acquiring an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Howell Raines was then the executive editor of The Times, and several articles about weapons of mass destruction were displayed prominently in the paper. Many of those articles turned out to be inaccurate.

By the spring of 2003, the newsroom...

[woofie]

more murkiness

[lawnguy]

It wasn't OUR fault; that lying employee said he had them.

But so did every western intelligence agency.

So did that great moderate voice of reason Colin Powell.

What a bunch of spineless a-holes.

[Colonial Warrior]

Hey Dere, whatchamacallit, Judith!

STIFLE YERSELF MEATHEAD!!

[pnut22]

I missed the part about the forgotten "Flame" source and the secondary agreement that was made with the prosecutor before Ms. Miller would testify. Typical NYT spin.

[ClaireSolt]

So, they can Miller, because????? And what about the editor who published Wilson's lies???

[LS]

The only "lingering question" for the Slimes is "why can't we seem to get Rove indicted even when we lie?"

[beyond the sea]

And what about the editor who published Wilson's lies??? ----

**

Good question.

[sirchtruth]

Nobody has still not answered the question
why Miller spent 85 days in jail?

[ConservativeGreek]

Are there any answers about Miller?

Why did Miller go to jail? (publicity?)
Why was her testimony limited? (according to her it was?)
Why did the newspaper defend her? (cause they thought she would bring down someone big?)
Why did no one at NYT question her before defending her?
(lawyers decided not to?)
Why is she going under the bus now? (they know she is not stable!)

[syriacus]

And third, the deferential treatment of Ms. Miller by editors who failed to dig into problems before they became a mess.

I'm more concerned about the deferential treatment of Joe Wilson.
The Times showcased Joe Wilson's lying op-ed.
I'd like to know -- Did the devil make them help Wilson? Or were they Wilson's willing co-conspirators?

[frankjr]

"It also means that because Ms. Miller didn't let an editor know what she knew, Times readers were deprived of a potentially exclusive look into an apparent administration effort to undercut Mr. Wilson and other critics of the Iraq war."

How did he get from Miller holding back from and Editor to an administrative effort to undercut critics? Refuting a critics lies is not illegal or unethical. But treating those lying critics as heroes is sickening.

By the way, the NYT articles about Miller answered nothing. It was full of "I don't recall", "I believe" or "I think", "I am not sure why I wrote that in my notes". The WH has had no problem coorperating with the GJ...the reporters involved are a different story.

[Lessismore]

Most likely Judy Miller was an Israeli agent.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I agree with the caller to a radio show who suggested that Ms Miller remembered a CIA employee she met / learned of at the time of doing research for her book, Germs. The book was co-authored with two other NYT employees.

Then something like this may have happened, while talking to Administration people during the yellow cake hubbub, she let it be known that the man selected by the CIA to spend a couple of days in a Niger hotel was married to a CIA employee. An interesting fact but no big deal.

Rat activists working as "journalists" for the MSM learned of the connection but thought it came from the Administration.

"Hey!" exclaimed the activists, with visions of impeachment and memories of how leftists' exposures of CIA operatives cost the lives of many of them years ago, "Bush named a CIA deep, deep-cover CIA operative! Let's see, let's see.. Oh! Yes, he did it to get back at Wilson. Pass it on! Hold the presses!"

It ain't working and the NYT emloyees are trying to divert to the old WMD story. It's another old trick but it might just work -- among MSM employees.

[kcvl]

Who do they think they are kidding. They know exactly why Judith Miller runs the place.

She and her boyfriend Steven Rattner, also a Times reporter, became close friends of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the son of the then-publisher of the Times, whose first job at the Times, starting in 1978, was also as a reporter of the Washington bureau. For several summers, Miller and Rattner shared a weekend house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Sulzberger and his wife, Gail.

In the newsroom, there are several theories. The first, and least persuasive, is the Sulzberger factor. There was always the sense, true or not, that she had a benefactor at the top, says Seth Faison. When Miller joined the Times in the late seventies, she arrived in the Washington bureau at about the same time as Arthur Sulzberger Jr. a recent college graduate getting hands-on experience in the shop floor of the family business. The D.C. office had only about half a dozen reporters under the age of 35, including Sulzberger, Miller, Steve Rattner, and Phil Taubman. They clung to one another.

[tbeatty]

wow. The Times goes back to it's ideology over it's duty. No surprise.


Let's review the Times ideology.
A). Embedding reporters is bad because it gives the reader information that is not filtered through their ideology. Therefore, they are now attacking the 'security clearance' required for that assignment (it would effectively kill embedding if it were disallowed).

B). Republicans are evil. Therefore any First Ammendment stands that are perceived impede the investigation into Republicans is also evil.

C). Standards for accuracy only exist when it benefits the liberal ideology. Witness how much they want to discredit the prewar intelligence even though it was believed as accurate by everyone who viewed it, including skeptics. Iraq may not have had WMD but it is ideology that makes the Times believe that better reporting would have uncovered it.

D). Confidential sources are only confidential when they are used to undermine Republican or Conservative causes.

[Grampa Dave]

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20051022/BLOG/51022002/-1/rss01

"How could Judith Miller forget a key meeting? Why didn't her editor ask more questions?

October 22, 2005

At Harvard, we talk a lot about the Judith Miller case, of course. The latest news leaves me flabbergasted.

You can’t even get the latest news in the New York Times. The comes via the Associated Press, although it’s posted on the Times’ Web site:

www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak-Investigation.html

My gut reaction to this latest story is that Miller should be fired. I also question how much longer Times editor Bill Keller ought to lead the nation’s top newsroom given that he seemed to be so easily misled about a story of such importance.

What is with Times’ editors lately? How disappointing."

End of the above quote.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the link.

[68skylark]

This is a weird article. I guess it's a debate among the mid-left, the hard-left, the fringe-left, and a couple other odd left-wing factions.

It's hard to understand what they're saying to each other, other than, "We hate Republicans and everything they do" and "We especially hate the liberation of Iraq."

[William Tell]

sirchtruth said: "Nobody has still not answered the question why Miller spent 85 days in jail?"

Hmmm... Could it be related to the fact that she later testified that she heard the name "Flame" from a source other than Rove/Libby? Could it be related to the fact that she now claims that she can't recall who that source was. Could it be related to the fact that Miller claimed to have a "deal" that she not be asked about others sources but was still compelled to state that she couldn't remember who her source was.

I can easily imagine Miller suffering a perjury charge if Fitzgerald, in fact, knows who Miller's source was. He may have enough information to convince a jury that Miller has intentionally lied regarding her source.

My guess is that Miller's source was either somebody "in the know" who would certainly go to prison for having shared information with her. This could be Wilson, himself, or somebody within the CIA who has no authority to talk to anybody. Or Miller's source could be somebody whose standing is important to the liberal establishment and whose participation in this case will lead to yet another person who could face prison. That "important to the liberal establishment" person could be somebody like Russert.

There is some possibility, I believe, that Fitzgerald could impanel a new grand jury. His investigation may yet go another 18 months or longer. If this happens, then one might easily believe that Miller and others are in deep, deep, trouble.