Judith Miller's New Excuse: the "slanderous" bloggers destroyed her.

Slate ^ | March 16, 2006 | Jack Shafer

[summer]

Judith Miller has a new alibi -- the blogs done her in!

Writer Marie Brenner presents Miller's latest defense in an April Vanity Fair feature story about the fallout from the Valerie Plame investigation. ...

The ones tossing the fire were those dastardly—but unnamed—bloggers ...

In June, back in New York, "Miller realized that she was losing her authority" inside the Times. "None of my colleagues ever spoke to me about my reporting. But they would say, 'We don't want to work with her.'

In August, Bill Keller replaced Raines as executive editor, and according to Miller, he told her, "You are radioactive. … You can see it in the blogs."

"I'm pretty sure I never said any such thing," Keller tells Brenner. (This isn't the only recent "he said, she said" story in which Miller comes out the loser. See this sidebar.)

Miller describes to Vanity Fair the process by which the Pajama People destroyed her:

The bloggers were without editing, without a way for people to understand what was good, what was well reported—to distinguish between the straight and the slanderous. Things would get instantly picked up, magnified, and volumized.

(Sounds more like what my hairdresser does with my thinning locks. But never mind.)

In Miller's mind, the bloggers not only poisoned her relationship with the Times brass but also with her colleagues, who, she says, "believed what they read on the blogs."

...Exactly who were all these unnamed bloggers ripping Miller to pieces? ...
If nasty bloggers played such a crucial role in her downfall, why is Miller only now bringing them up? ...

A lame excuse? A case of recovered memory? Or something worse?

[OESY]

Isn't it always someone else with this group of fetid friends?

(Pinch pulled a punch and Miller went down.)

[Beagle8U]

Read further back up the thread and you'll see they have them.

[RoseofTexas]

[Cboldt]

Blogs are self-editiing. If someone blogs a lie or a story incorrectly, an army of "editors" expose it ...

Not necessarily.

[OKIEDOC]

Miller describes to Vanity Fair the process by which the Pajama People destroyed her:

REPLY:

WHO............LIL OLE ME...........LOL

[Chode]

FR is no blog, and has no editors as such, but talk sh!t here... and 100 people who know better will set you straight in a heart beat!!!

after that, it's Kitties and Lightning...

[johnny7]

I believe she's talking about the lefty blogs... not so much us. It's THEY who were pissed-off about her contacts at the CIA and other security departments.

[manwiththehands]

"Honest... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. It was the evil bloggers! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!!!"

[Cboldt]

FR is no blog, and has no editors as such, but talk sh!t here... and 100 people who know better will set you straight in a heart beat!

Not necessarily. I've seen some fairly persistent errors here.

Point being that independent "look farther" is a healthy practice. Don't believe everythng you read, from anywhere.

[zip]

ping

[Jimbaugh]

Convenient Memory Syndrome.

Symptoms: You only remember what you want to remember and if you don't like what you remember you make something else up that you like better.

This explains the problem with her "news" reporting.

[Wristpin]

"I believe she's talking about the lefty blogs... not so much us. It's THEY who were pissed-off about her contacts at the CIA and other security departments."

In order for the "Bush Lied" myth to live on, the history of Iraq in the 90's and the CIA estimates about WMD must be destroyed. She's part of that history.

[mkjessup]

What Miller and Mapes have in common (IMHO) is a desire to blame others for their own errors in judgment.

Miller chose to go to jail in an apparent attempt to become a martyr, and she alone is responsible for that poor choice.

[summer]

Re your post #63 - LOL...

[syriacus]

Shades of the Soviet Union: The Judith Miller Story

Have you heard that Miss Miller's recanting?
Her excuses are less than enchanting.
"I've done readers wrong."
"Now I'm moving along."
"I hope you'll forgive my news-slanting."

Miller 'sorry' for WMD inaccuracies [Judith Miller, the US journalist has apologised to her readers], 11/30/2005, story from the BBC, thread on FR

Judith Miller, the US journalist at the heart of the CIA leak probe, has apologised to her readers because her stories about WMD and Iraq turned out to be wrong.

[summer]

Re your post #61 - LOL...

[summer]

re your post #53 -- Scroll down HERE to the next to the last letter, to see Judith Miller's letter to Maureen Dowd -- asking Maureen to correct seven factual errors in Dowd's column!

[Mind-numbed Robot]

In October 2005, Miller claimed in an e-mail to the Times public editor that after a July 2003 breakfast meeting with Scooter Libby, she had suggested to Jill Abramson—then Washington bureau chief and now Times managing editor—that the bureau pursue the tip she'd received about Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV's trip to Niger and his wife's employment at the CIA.

Abramson rejected Miller's tale about the tip, telling me, "That is not so."

Is it possible that this is the fib that Fitzgerald is basing his indictment of Libby on? He did call Miller and Libby each back just before the indictment was issued. Surely he asked Jill Abramson about it, but maybe not.

[P-40]

Miller describes to Vanity Fair the process by which the Pajama People destroyed her.

If I didn't know there was such an organization as Pajama Media that would be a very funny line.

[msnimje]

Not necessarily.

Actually yes. When blogs post bogus claims, other bloggers start to fact check and then posts pointing out the errors spread like wild fire through the blogosphere.

See blogs such as Michelle Malkin, Expose the Left, Power Line, Instapundit to name a very few.