Spreading the Plame

It's time to come to the defense of Judith Miller. Yes, the former New York Times reporter served as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration during the buildup to the Iraq War. And she certainly had a dubious role in the Plamegate scandal. But the way her colleagues have been going after her, you'd think Miller was the only journalist who abetted the Bush administration's rush to war. Or that she was the only reporter who got too cozy with officials when they maliciously leaked a CIA agent's identity.

There are lots of them. Just last week, another war accomplice, New Yorker writer George Packer, spoke at the Miami Book Fair. Packer, you might remember, was a leading pro-war voice from the left. As talk of "regime change" crescendoed in late 2002, Packer wrote a tortured pro-war piece in the New York Times Magazine that left the Gray Lady naked and trembling.

Things have changed a little. On November 19, he told a Miami-Dade College auditorium crowd that he's now of "two minds" about the Iraq venture and quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald, saying the true test of intelligence is the ability to hold opposing viewpoints and still function.

It seems the idiots still have a strong foothold in the Broward / Palm Beach area of Florida.

Quite the knotted panty alert here. I would give it a (BARF ALERT!) but its just to damn funny. By the end of the article I was looking torwards my window to see if Ol' Norms body plummeting by.

No such luck.

Just last week, another war accomplice, New Yorker writer George Packer, spoke at the Miami Book Fair. Packer, you might remember, was a leading pro-war voice from the left.

Uh, no, I don't remember. Any relation to Greg Packer, the NYT's favorite "man-on-the-street"?

Judith Miller dedicated thousands of hours gaining a knowledge of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. She helped reveal to the world the massive chemical attacks by Saddam on the Iranians and later the Kurds, risking her life in remote and dangerous places, writing books on the subject. She became the New York Times expert on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And like every other expert from Russia to Europe to the U.S. Congress, she was convinced those weapons still existed just prior to the 2003 invasion. Judith Miller's crime was not that she was wrong about WMD's but that she still possesses enough objectivity and intellectual integrity to see all viewpoints and possibilities. I watched Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. being interviewed by Charlie Rose on PBS a few weeks ago. Sulzberger said Miller could not be trusted ever again even to write a restaurant column for the Times for fear Times' readers would read some political message in her words. This coming from someone who has shamelessly corrupted a once respected paper into a cheap, delusional, political pamphlet. Arthur Sr., "Punch", was a World War II enlisted Marine, a traditional liberal and a businessman. Arthur, "Pinch", Jr. was a draft-dodging Vietnam war protester, a trust-fund hippie and bed-wetter. "Pinch", 90 percent of the Times staff, and this boot-licking scribbler, Bob Norman, wouldn't make a pimple on Judith Miller's rear end.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.