A Profile In Courage: Judith Miller

"The freest and fairest societies are not only those with independent judiciaries,but those with an independent press that works every day to keep government accountable by publishing what the government might not want the public to know."

--Judith Miller addressing the judge who locked her up.


As I write, New York Times writer Judith Miller sits in jail, condemned to serve time because she refuses to divulge the names of her news sources. Never mind, now, that she didn’t out a CIA agent, didn’t in fact, write about the case; no, she’s paying a high price for being committed to ideals larger than her self-interest. Robert Novak, on the other hand, the scum ball conservative columnist for The Chicago-Sun times newspaper and television commentator, DID in fact identify the name of an undercover CIA agent in his newspaper column. He wrote, using information provided by what he said were two high ranking White House sources. Why hasn’t the special prosecutor hauled Novak’s slimy ass before the grand jury? He continues writing his column and appearing on the weekly talk shows unaffected by it all.

This doesn’t make sense. . .Novak’s the jerk who outed the undercover CIA agent using information provided to him (that’s what he wrote) by the White House. Why are this judge and this special prosecutor playing games with us. . .attempting to make us believe that they’re trying to find out where the information came from. . .what crap! Let’s get beyond these childhood pretend games, we don’t need a round of paddy cake to make us happy, Robert Novak knows who gave him the information. He said so in the column he wrote specially for the purpose of blowing an under cover CIA agent’s cover.

The Special Prosecutor was appointed to find out who leaked the information. Why are he and that screw ball judge chasing after Ms. Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, neither of whom outed anybody? This is beyond crazy! This is another diversionary tactic to keep our eyes off the ball. Novak should be hauled before that Grand Jury; he’s the jerk who talked to the unidentified sources in the White House and who violated federal law in revealing an undercover agents name and possibly endangering her life. It’s very clear in the story that Cooper did write in Time Magazine that the White House wanted a pound of flesh because that undercover CIA agent’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had publicly criticized the President for misrepresenting the truth in his rush to war in Iraq. Make no mistake about it, this was more gutter politics from the White House.

There is a disturbing pattern in this nonsense. Think about it, during those days when journalists were trying to find out whether or not Bush served in the Alabama National Guard, whether they could actually find ANYBODY who remembered even seeing Bush, CBS became the issue. Now as an Army veteran myself, I can, after the passage of many years, vividly remember the names of most of the soldiers I served with; not only do I remember their names, I remember many of the details of their lives: where they came from, how they liked the Army etc. President Bush, on the other hand, couldn’t and didn’t give us any names; he couldn’t come up with one single, solitary name. Let's be honest about it, Bush was AWOL! The American people where too easily side tracked. . .by diversionary tactics. The Bush operatives drag a red herring across the trail, and the poor old blood hounds and the White House Press Corp don’t know whether to shit or go blind; they usually error and go bline.

When Newsweek published a sentence in the Periscope section recently detailing miss treatment of the Muslim Holy book, right-wing commentators, outside and inside the White House, made Newsweek responsible for much of the death and destruction in Iraq (See my earlier post on this subject). The reports from FBI agents, The International Red Cross and Amnesty International, all supported the Newsweek story, got lost in the shuffle along with numerous other reports.

And then even more recently, poor old Senator Durbin from Illinois dared to read an FBI agent's horror story, the account the agent wrote after watching interrogations at the Cuban prison. Again, never mind that other reputable sources, sources that the Administration frequently quoted when it suited their purposes, presented evidence totally in line with the comments made my Senator Durbin. Another red herring hit the tail and truth lost out.

It’s tough, no, close to impossible to get a handle on the morality of these Bush people. Hell, the Vice President can tell the Senior Democrat member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to go F ----himself and get away with it, as he did. The Vice President’s comment was so rank most newspapers of any note would not print his words. I actually heard some right-wingers chuckle about it; indeed, a couple of them were men of the cloth, ministers, at least they’re supposed to be. Even old self-righteous himself, Sen. Hatch smiled when asked about it.

Oh how selective our sense of civility and decorum become when we let our identity as human beings take on the shape of political ideology. Oh how willingly so may willingly sacrifice their humanity in the service of right-wing gutter politics.

The nobility of our purpose does matter as we make this journey in life! Though Ms. Miller may not have all the legalisms sorted out, she does show incredible courage in following convictions larger than self. It is not avarice, or any of the base motives that drives her; it's her belief in an important ideal. I’m reminded of Henry David Thoreau sitting in jail for refusing to obey an unjust law. When his dear friend Ralf Waldo Emerson asked him why he was sitting in jail, Thoreau pointedly replied, “Why are you standing out there?” Hopefully Ms. Miller's example will serve to excite others to fight for things noble, things larger than self. Our spirit has been starved too long by the mean spirited greed that seems to inform the Bush people.


Davy Crockett