Posted on 10/24/2005 7:05:20 AM PDT by frankjr
Judy Miller fights back against her own newspaper's effort to defenestrate her. This is her letter to the Public Editor in response to his finger-wagging at her. It's not behind Timeselect, but it does require registration. Here's the opener, it goes on for a while after that:
"I’m dismayed by your essay today. You accuse me of taking journalistic “shortcuts” without presenting evidence of what you mean and rely on unsubstantiated innuendo about my reporting.
While you posted Bill Keller’s sanitized, post-lawyered version of the ugly, inaccurate memo to the staff he circulated Friday, which accused me of “misleading” an editor and being “entangled” with I. Lewis Libby, you declined to post the answers I sent you to six questions that we touched on during our interview Thursday. Had you done so, readers could have made their own assessment of my conduct in what you headlined as “the Miller mess.”
You chose to believe Jill Abramson when she asserted that I had never asked her to pursue the tip I had gotten about Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger and his wife’s employment at the C.I.A. Now I ask you: Why would I – the supposedly pushiest, most competitive reporter on the planet -- not have pushed to pursue a tantalizing tip like this? Soon after my breakfast meeting with Libby in July, I did so. I remember asking the editor to let me explore whether what my source had said was true, or whether it was a potential smear of a whistleblower. I don’t recall naming the source of the tip. But I specifically remember saying that because Joe Wilson’s op-ed column had appeared in our paper, we had a particular obligation to pursue this. I never identified the editor to the grand jury or publicly, since it involved internal New York Times decision-making. But since you did, yes, the editor was Jill Abramson."
As time goes on, it's more and more obvious that you are exactly right. It's more and more farcical and frightening at the same time the MSM continues to focus on Rove and Libby instead of screaming about the virtually naked intervention in the political process by the national security apparatus.
Consider the purpose of the editor's original memo. Morale at the Times is low because Miller did not rat out the entire Bush Administration. In talking to Libby, Miller did nothing that Times reporters, and the entire journalistic profession, don't do all the time. They all have their anonymous sources. If they want to slant a story a certain way, they know which "source" to pick. They rely on their friends and cohorts - that is to say, their sources - for the material to write their stories with.
This is very instructive. The Times considered attacking the Clinton Administration as a crime against journalism. And they consider failing to attack the Bush Administration as a crime against journalism. That's called bias. Journalism has nothing to do with it.
Thank you so much.
It mentions Chalabi's current importance in Iraq
An observation: Where were all these horrible tales about Judith Miller before she testified to the Grand Jury? Can you say sour grapes?
Thanks for the link to the editorial...it's really well done.
I continue to wonder...what is it that has put the New York Times in attack mode. I understand that they think they had it wrong on the WMD, largely because of Miller, but is the proper response to personally attack their own journalist? It just seems like something more is going on here...in so many words Miller has been declared a hostile witness.
"I understand that they think they had it wrong on the WMD, largely because of Miller, but is the proper response to personally attack their own journalist? It just seems like something more is going on here...in so many words Miller has been declared a hostile witness."
I hope everyone remembers what a fair and unbiased reporter Jill Abramson was.
Lest we forget, she wrote the book "Strange Justice" about Clarence Thomas. It was meant to neutralize "The Real Anita Hill" and justify the "electronic lynching" of Thomas.
No agenda there. Uh-huh.
Well, you know what I mean. =)
Defenestration, definitely!
We'll witness autophagy in this little episode a little later on!
CA....
" I think I'll defenestrate myself right over to the dictionary."
I hope you live on the first floor. (I just looked it up as well)
LOL, I can't believe there's a word for that!
de·fen·es·trate Audio pronunciation of "defenestrate" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-fn-strt)
tr.v. de·fen·es·trat·ed, de·fen·es·trat·ing, de·fen·es·trates
To throw out of a window.
You might not believe this, but about three years ago, there was a whole FR thread dedicated to the word, "DEFENSTRATE." Everything old is new again!
In my personal framework of logic, defenestrate would mean "to render windowless," like unto defoliate. To throw out from (through) a window would be to "exfenestrate," a word not recognized by my Webster's, more's the pity.
Has it occurred to anyone that there might be something personal between Scooter Libby and Judy Miller? Cause it sure occurred to me. Would certaily justify her going to jail for him, and explain his weird coded letter to her.
In this battle of credibility I'll take Miller over Jill "Strange Justice" Abramson.
As Miller points out, she swore to her version under oath.
It's sickening to watch the NYT try to adopt some kind of virtuous stance on reporters and their holy sources while embracing a documented liar (Wilson and his gang) as they try to throw a Bush administration official passing on honest information to the best of his ability under the train.
It won't work.
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