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Jewish World Review Oct. 20, 2005 / 17 Tishrei, 5766 Out of jail and in disrepute By Debra J. Saunders
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"We have everything to be proud of and nothing to apologize
for," New York Times reporter Judith Miller told colleagues preparing a
story on Miller's testimony before a federal grand jury probing a White
House leak that targeted CIA employee Valerie Plame after her husband,
former ambassador Joe Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece critical of the Bush
administration.
Sorry, but I wouldn't be proud of everything. For one thing,
Miller's explanation — as to why she agreed to testify, after serving 85
days behind bars for refusing to do so — is fishy, and late in coming. Her
source, Veep Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had
released her and other reporters from their confidentiality agreement
earlier. Also, Miller should not have agreed to identify Libby as "a former
Hill staffer" when he was a White House staffer. She wouldn't be the first
journalist to conspire to mislead, but it was wrong.
Then, there's Miller's testimony that she "could not recall" who
told her about "Valerie Flame." File that under: Hard to believe.
Her post-jail remarks especially disturb me because I believe
Miller has been the journalism profession's unhappy scapegoat on the issue
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"WMD — I got it totally wrong," she admitted in the Times
Sunday. "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them —
we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong." In this case,
Miller was hardly alone in believing Iraq had WMD. In 2002, CIA chief George
Tenet had told President Bush that the issue was a "slam dunk."
Some critics talk as if it was an act of aberrant willfulness
for Miller to buy what the CIA chief thought to be true. So they have taken
out their knitting needles and are calling for her head. They want her
fired. They want her investigated. They supported the feds when they jailed
Miller for refusing to testify.
They've concocted a convenient rationale about why prosecutors
should be allowed to force Miller to testify, in violation of her promise of
confidentiality. That is: Confidentiality should only protect
whistle-blowers and should not apply to high-up officials.
What they mean is: Promises of confidentiality should not apply
to Bushies. Meanwhile, two years into special prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald's investigation, it is not even remotely clear that a law was
broken. The 1982 law requires that the CIA take "affirmative measures" to
hide the identity of a covert operative. At this juncture, it is not clear
that Plame was covert in 2003 or that Karl Rove or Libby knew she had been.
Those distinctions are highly material, even if they are all but ignored by
the Bush-haters.
What of The New York Times? The paper was overly slow to report
this story — and top editors look bad for not getting the whole story from
Miller sooner. The Times also looked downright silly this year when it
redubbed Plame as "Valerie Wilson" — as it reported that Karl Rove told a
reporter Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, without naming her.
Still, the Times was right to stand by the principle that
journalists protect a promise of confidentiality. As New York Times
Executive Editor Bill Keller put it, "I hope that people will remember that
this institution stood behind a reporter, and the principle, when it wasn't
easy to do that, or popular to do that."
"Popular" is the key word here. The left, and many journalists,
enjoy a conceit that, when journalistic controversies erupt, the right will
be armed with pitchforks, while the left thoughtfully hashes out the finer
distinctions. In this instance, the Bush-hating left has been ready to
discard its principles in order to discredit a journalist who wrote stories
it doesn't like. If they could jail her for her reporting, they would. And
like Miller, they're proud of actions that calmer minds would not wish to
broadcast.
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Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here. © 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
