Judith Miller: A Profile In Deception (A Wily, Mendacious, Dilettante!)

Some time ago, I must now shamefully admit, I histrionically wrote about New York Times reporter Judy Miller's "heroic" refusal to comply with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's request for information about her sources. Yup, I had her on my short list of candidates for a profile in courage medal; or better yet, an addendum chapter to the old John Kennedy book detailing all those heroic profiles from the past.

At the time Fitzgerald seemed overly zealous in pursing a mandate aimed at finding out who, if anybody, outed the covert CIA agent. Though it did seem rather odd, indeed incomprehensible, that he would be legally harassing an innocent reporter who hadn't even written a story about the Wison-Plame matter while seemingly ignoring the reporter who did. Why, I'd written, hadn't the special prosecutor hauled Robert Novak's ass before the grand jury. After all, he was the slim ball columnist who wrote the original story revealing CIA agent Plame's identity to the world. Poor Judy, wedded to high, time honored, journalistic principles would rather rot in jail than debase her lofty profession; toward that end, she spent the next 85 days in jail; that's how it looked at the time.

Well, now we know the rest of the story, or at least a good bit of it. With her release from prison, the Times, with some grudging help from Judy, has filled in a few more details. So what do we know now that we didn't know before Judy's painful 85 day sojourn in prison?

We know that prior to her encounter with prosecutor Fitzgerald, she'd long since compromised her journalistic integrity by schmoozing with the Iraqi expatriates, most notably Ahmad Chalabi and those expatriates he brought forward to support the rush to war. Make no mistake about it, Ahmad Chalabi had designs on Iraq and saw a chance to use the neocons in that effort. Using fabricated information from the Iraqi expatriates, Judy Miller also became an unwitting participant writing stories about the nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction.

It is now quite clear that the riff between the Bush White House and the CIA relates to the basic conflict between their intelligence and what the Bush people wanted to believe. Bush and the neocons clearly shunted the CIA aside in favor of Mr. Chalabi and his sycophants. (Former White House Advisor Richard Clark details these problems in his book.) It's also clear that during her appearances before the Fitzgerald Grand Jury she was at best a reluctant witness. She omitted any mention of an earlier meeting she'd had with Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, until informed that his appointments log gave evidence of such a meeting; she had testified about some later meetings. It is not hard to believe that Ms. Miller's purpose in not revealing Mr. Libby's name as a principal source of information was due to her desire to protect him.

Whatever her motives might have been, the fact remains that Ms. Miller became a conduit for Mr. Chalabi and neocons fabrications about the nonexistent WMD's. Not willing to defend the indefensible, Ms. Miller has candidly acknowledged that her stories were completely off the mark–there were no WMDs. "If your sources are wrong," she blithely stated, "you are wrong." Are we to conclude that she was merely a recorder? She didn't need to worry about source credibility?

It is not so easy to evade responsibility in such matters. As others have noted, a reporter is more than a mere stenographer who records and passes along information. Her personal involvement in the issue is also reflected in her reaction to journalists who criticized Ahmad Chalabi in print. Maureen Dowd, after writing a piece critical of Chalabi, received an e-mail message from Miller in April of this past year, 2004, defending him. . .a message written at a time when it was clear to everyone that Mr Chalabi’s had waged a misinformation campaign; there were no WMDs. Ms. Miller was not defending high journalistic principles, No! She was defending a friend whose political crap she’d swallowed hook, line and sinker; the hokum that she’d uncritically accepted as true and presented as fact in series of New York Times articles.

We do know that Ms. Miller's boss, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in the summer of 2003, prohibited her from further coverage of Iraq and the WMD issues; however, we also know that she willing ignored that probation and continued to collude with Libby and company.

One does have to wonder, given her continued meetings with Libby, why she didn't write a story about the covert CIA Agent Valiery Plame. She has written that she failed to write such a story because the Times Washington based bureau chief , Jill Abramson, wouldn't let her. Ms. Abramson denies that, stating that Judy had never asked for such permission.

Based upon the evidence, I think it's fair to surmise that Ms. Miller didn't write about the covert CIA agent because she was ideologically involved in the issues, and her reasons had nothing to do with her role as a New York Times journalist.

In good drama a writer reveals character, personality and the like on the stage by placing characters in situations that force interactions designed to help us understand who they are, what their values are, whether the individuals are kind or mean, arrogant or humble etc. Such revelatory situations work dramatically because they mirror life; we find out about the people that inhabit our world in much the same way; we watch, evaluate and make character assessments, but in life, unlike the theater, the minutia of our daily existence often surrounds revelatory behavior making it difficult to get it in a focus sharp enough for all but the most discerning eyes. However, at times, there are exceptions, times when we see individual behavior unobscured by social noise, life's minutia. In a recent column, Maureen Dowd offers us such a revelator glimpse of Judy Miller:

“Once when I was covering the first Bush White House,” wrote Dowd, “ I was in The Times’s seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official’s background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.

At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me. ‘I think I should be sitting in the Times seat.’ It was,” concluded Dowd, “such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.”
(New York Times, October 22, 2005)

Yes, I was wrong about Judy Miller. She’s apparently as vain as the above suggests. Now that the dust has settled a bit, we know a lot more about her, and the additional exposure is of an indecent journalist not likely to win any awards; there’s apparently good reason why so many of her colleagues at the Times uniformly disliked her.

As always, ever on the watch for ya,

Davy Crockett
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Act in such a way that you treat humanity, both in your own person and in the person of others, never as a means only but always equally as an end.

--Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)