Time for Miller to Come Clean

[kentuck]

Maybe Libby was pleading for mercy from Judith Miller with his sweet note to her?
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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0541,webschan,68715,2.html

<snip>
The press's role in the leak of a CIA operative's identity has made clear that if ever there was a time for transparency by the journalism community, this is it. The case is clouded in secrecy and murk, including the part about the press's involvement. At least two of the reporters involved, protecting sources, have failed to give anything resembling a complete account of their information-gathering.

I am not suggesting in any way that they name confidential sources who are not already known, but if they or their employers are to claim credibility, a full disclosure of their roles is crucial. The public needs to be given details of, among other things, how they conducted their reporting, what their conversations with their sources consisted of, what questions the special federal prosecutor investigating the case posed to them, and what their responses were. They should also bring forward any testimony they gave to the prosecutor's grand jury. Once a person testifies, he or she can make the testimony public.

<snip>
Another controversial journalist, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, was found guilty of civil contempt by the federal judge in the case for refusing to identify her sources or testify before the grand jury. Finally, last week, after 85 days in a federal jail, she worked out a deal with the prosecutor and testified about one of her sources — I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney. She also turned over some of her notes, which she was allowed to edit in advance. She has refused as yet to discuss the details of her involvement, but says this will all come out in the soon-to-appear New York Times account of the story. Oddly, though weapons of mass destruction are one of her key fields of interest and she seems to have done substantial reporting on the criticism by Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, of the Bush administration, she never published a story about it. So far, she has not explained why.

Since her release, Miller has gone on television to defend her actions, but has not cleared up any of the mysteries. In these appearances, she has said repeatedly that if sources' identities were not protected, many of them would not come forward and tell reporters what shenanigans the government and major corporations were really up to, and the public would suffer. "The public's right to know" is at stake, she says again and again. And she's right. That's why I believe, since she is a major part of the story, that she now has to take the uncommon step of telling us her whole story. She has to do it for the public she says she is responsible to, for her colleagues, and for the Times, whose reputation is also at stake here.

...more

[texpatriot2004]

1. Good point Judy, I/we do have a right to know so why aren't you

telling us? What are you hiding Judy and more importantly, who?

[IndyJones]

2. I wonder what is being hidden, too. I have problems with "unnamed"

sources because it seems like people can say anything, true or lies, and hide behind the press when the shit hits the fan. I see her point, too, that people don't want others to know they are a source.

I have mixed feelings on this issue.

[peace frog]

3. Prosecutor Fitzgerald cut a deal with her

that required she only reveal specific conversations and/or correspondence... he released her from any obligation to reveal more than that. Who thinks Miller will feel an inner compulsion to "come clean" when there are no consequences for her silence? Ain't gonna happen IMHO.

[Garbo 2004]

4. Judy would rat out a true whistleblower in a heartbeat. And likely has

done so.

[pacalo]

5. Miller closed the book on any chance that she'll tell all

when she said that she's "afraid" -- "the government is too powerful."

Aspens turning. Roots connect them. They turn in clusters. Come back to work -- & life.

I'd like to think that when she expressed that fear, she was seeking affirmation from Fitzgerald that he would protect her if she talked, but she obviously didn't get any assurances from him since she agreed only to testify about Libby.

I think she was bought by this administration; perhaps she was hinting for a plea bargain in addition to protection from Fitzgerald.

In any case, I'd love to hear her story.

[fasttense]

6. She will publish a book, make millions, and tell how she was just a

pawn in this horrible thing. She is not above lying and making things up (you know like that book she wrote on WMD in Iraq). So I suspect it will be fiction.

[MrBenchley]

7. Think of the absurdity of this....

Judy Miller is a reporter whose job is to tell the American people what she finds out from high government officials, who is refusing to tell the American people what she learned from high government officials.

The First Amendment gives her the right to tell the American people what she finds out from high government officials, but she is claiming that it gives her the right not to tell the American people what she learned from high government officials.

[Tennessee Gal]

8. She is not protecting whistle blowers.

She is protecting liars and con artists. The public be damned. That has been the problem with her stance all along.

If Libby or anyone else within the administration talked to her about Plame, she has an obligation to tell.

[MrBenchley]

9. Think about this....

The New York Times was scooped by other papers when she got out of jail....

[MrBenchley]

10. By the way, harken back to the Jayson Blair scandal...

Funny we don't see lots of right wing blowhards printing things like this:

"This is an instructive story to keep in mind whenever we are told that companies should not look especially hard to find employees that will move the company toward greater "diversity." In the first place, if companies are looking especially hard for white people..., then they are going to overlook and show less interest in people of another color. That is the point, right? Second, if your company has told you, a manager, that it wants to find white people, then you inevitably are going to put your thumb on the scale whenever a candidate of the "right" color appears. Don't want to disappoint the boss, you know....
The New York Times' experience with Judy Miller is, no doubt, an extreme case, but other companies that avoid diversity will inevitably sacrifice excellence as well."

http://www.nationalreview.com/clegg/clegg051903.asp

"The Big Story featuring the New York Times and Judy Miller is grounds for twittery — look what happened to the Gray Lady! But the reproaches give satisfaction only because of the high standards of the newspaper, and the sense of it that slippages in such a fortress make for great waterfalls.
Those who worked their way through... what Judy Miller did came only, toward the end of the story, to the question that immediately came instantly to the inquirer's mind. It was: Did he get away with it because she is white? Answer: We don't really know. "

http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley051603.asp