thanks for tracking the ramifications

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 16 2005 22:08 utc | 3

So she’s probably got some high-paying consultant job lined up…or maybe she’ll be the flip side of Woodward-you know, revealer turned apologist/liar-but in her case, it’ll be enabler turned senior serious talking head.
Sort of a G. Gordon Liddy, except without a shaven head-or maybe that will be her prison cut….

Posted by: doug r | Jul 16 2005 22:33 utc | 5

Enough With the Judith Miller Defending…
Journalists don’t give other journalists stories with their own “unnamed” sources, while not printing the story themselves. Why anyone would think that Judith Miller is a journalist at this point is beyond me. She is a journalist like Goebbels was a journalist. Propaganda is not journalism. Clearly, she is working for the neocons and the Bush Administration and posing as a journalist. Whether the New York Times is aware of this or just completely bamboozled is a question for the history books. Judith Miller knew her WMD stories were bogus, knew the sources for those stories were bogus and knew that she was just helping to promote the boguse rationale for the war. That isn’t fucking journalism. Judith Miller knew that the point of giving up Plame was to discredit an obviously true report from Plame’s husband (or is someone trying to say that the Niger uranium story is true?). She gave the story to someone else so that she would not be fingered for more disinformation. Novak is little better than Miller.
Can anyone say that at any time they believe that Miller was trying to get to the truth of the matter regarding WMD’s or Wilson? Of course not, only journalists seek the truth, even if they get caught up in their own biases. But this goes beyond even biased journalism. Judith Miller is not a journalist!

Posted by: steve expat | Jul 16 2005 22:41 utc | 7

We concentrate (and not wrongly so) on whether Judith F. Miller divulgeda state secret to someone or other. We do not concentrate on whether Miller was cleared to know such things. I’m willing to bet that Miller possesses all kinds of information that most of us would go to jail for possessing, and that Fitzgerald’s trying to demonstrate this to the Grand Jury. This fact, if demonstrable, would prepare Fitzgerald’s way for indicting all and any individuals who may imparted information of that kind to Miller or to anyone else. Call it a violation of some “state secrets act” or other–the sort of thing that State, the CIA, and the FBI understand very well (many of whose employees have testified before the Grand Jury). If this is the way it’s going (and I think it is), then the excitement surrounding Plame/Rove/Miller is secondary to the principal action. It also means that a whole lot of folks should be getting ready for trial.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 16 2005 22:43 utc | 9

That is an interesting angle, and one that is probably Fitzgerald’s actual target, that in the aftermath of a national emergency and going into a war the administration was leaking classied secret and higher documents and information like a sieve. Remember, there was the whole bit with Chalibi passing information straight to his Iranian handlers, there clearly was a breakdown in many places with who to and how information was being desiminated, basically throwing out 40 years worth of cold war era “hide the big picture” discipline (and running against a whole bunch of cold war era state secrets type laws).

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 16 2005 23:11 utc | 11

Daedalus could not have devised a more intricate labyrinth.
Just for the record, I believe Rush was downing oxycodone hydrocholride.
I mean, if he was drinking Lagavulin and we said he was drinking Dewar’s, we’d be just plain wrong.

Posted by: ommzms | Jul 16 2005 23:22 utc | 13

Anyone who imparted a secret to anyone not cleared to know that secret is a target of Fitzgerald’s discovery proceedings. No wonder none of the targets has leaked a word to the press about this side of things! That person (1.) hopes to high heaven that he or she isn’t a target, (2.) surely regrets having divulged things, and having this action documented and denounced by an angry opponent from his or her agency, (3.) hates to admit it to a Grand Jury, under threat of indictment, and (4.) most certainly won’t show a continuing and unbreakable tendency to leak things–such as material discussed before a grand jury. As to why the press hasn’t discussed this side of things….well, it’s fascinating to ponder–a daedal unto itself, as ommzms
might say.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 16 2005 23:38 utc | 15

I don’t mean to be redundant (from a previous comment on a previous post of the same subject), but Bush’s approval ratings on foreign policy and the war on terror went up after the London bombings despite all this Rovenalia. With apocalyptic news like THIS, at least realize that it is all connected to the false justification of an illegal war. This is not about one person, although unholy Cheney would certainly do; it is about the hegemonic, or if you prefer, chauvinist neocons (an all too innocuous sounding word, neocon, that is)and their obtuse and pedantic world view, a dystopian wet dream, that is as murderous and relentless as, well, the Terminator.

Posted by: ommzms | Jul 16 2005 23:46 utc | 17

Alabama,
To quote an old Clint eastwood movie, I hope Fitz hangs them high.
Maybe half of DC with them.

Posted by: jdp | Jul 17 2005 0:02 utc | 19

The trying moments of the inside the Beltway Journalismos. WE must all hope they don’t get a hangnail;
Real, Imagined, Moral, or Ethical:
LINK

Posted by: Groucho | Jul 17 2005 0:33 utc | 21

By the way:
Why, when Rove found out Plame’s identity, did he NOT report the breach of security to the CIA, but to one of Rice’s flunkies — and who also just happened to be a guy who, unlike George Tenet, Rove could have fired in five seconds?
That little fact should help Fitzgerald in his efforts.

Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Jul 17 2005 1:42 utc | 23

“One of the CIA guys quoted as attending the meeting REALLY WASN’T THERE!?!?”
It’s in the Washington Post story I linked to near the top of the post:

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband’s trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame’s alleged role in arranging Wilson’s trip could not have attended the meeting.

Of course, that didn’t stop the Senate Whitewash Committee from citing the memo as conclusive evidence that Wilson lied about his wife’s role in the Niger trip.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 17 2005 1:51 utc | 25

The senate committee pulled a fast one on Wilson when Roberts, Hatch and Bond added addendums that are taken as fact and finding. That addendum was a hatchet job and the RNC is using it in its smear against Wilson. Wilsons letter to the committe was on kos or Raw Story asking for correction of the record and expanding on his testimony.
The RNC has a large credibility gap if any inquiring mind would take the time to find real info.
faux, I don’t believe Miller is a CIA agent planted at the times. I believe she runs in certain circles, has been told the neo-con philosophy, and being the sycophant she is, wrote hack stories.

Posted by: jdp | Jul 17 2005 2:18 utc | 27

@groucho You’re correct of course but that doesn’t stop the South’s morbid fascination with the interminable wriggling that the North undertakes all apparently in an effort to avoid confronting anything substantial.
Even Cockburn has become distracted.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 17 2005 2:54 utc | 29

The press is only relevant to this story as subjects of the investigation. All of the noise that has been going on over the past week is just that, noise. This is because the people who are driving this investigation have long since concluded that the press has been compromised. Therefore they have been intentionally cut out of the process, and it is driving them fucking crazy. It is a thing of beauty.

Posted by: SW | Jul 17 2005 3:52 utc | 31

Frank Rich hits one out the park

Posted by: postit | Jul 17 2005 4:21 utc | 33

What are the ethical ramifications for Miller/journalism if Fitzgerald – knowing Rove’s MO of cutouts and laundering bits of info through various people – is trying to assemble a complex real-life version of the child’s game “telephone” where the child beside whispers a phrase, and the next child attempts to pass the information on to the next verbatim?
Unavoidably, the information is degraded, altered, misunderstood, etc.
Could Miller be shielding – for good or ill – gaps in that chain of communication? Perhaps Fitzgerald thinks he knows the chain of events but he can trace the path only to a certain point, at which, it jumps out the other side fully formed.
Perhaps we could retain the services of some of the Intelligent Design advocates. We could gather outside the White House and demand “WHERE ARE THE INTERMEDIATE FORMS!?”
It’s only a theory, though. “Rove is a criminal” should be given equal time.

Posted by: MasonMcD | Jul 17 2005 4:50 utc | 35

In Billmon’s post-Millertime thrashing of the A1 Nouveau Pravda piece by the Three Stooges he points out that it has all the elements of being a shameless bit of zoom-in spin directed at Powell.
Which I would not disagree with on balance, but is not the following at least a small attempt to let at least a wee bit of light in?
“When Mr. Wilson’s Op-Ed article appeared on July 6, 2003, a Sunday, Richard L. Armitage, then deputy secretary of state, called Carl W. Ford Jr., the assistant secretary for intelligence and research, at home, a former State Department official said. Mr. Armitage asked Mr. Ford to send a copy of the memorandum to Mr. Powell…..”
And why all the dancing in the byline? Is it possible that one or both of the first two Stooges, Jehl or Johnston, actually balked at the way the piece was assembled?

Posted by: RossK | Jul 17 2005 6:09 utc | 37

She wouldn’t have to rely on a journalistic “right” to keep her sources confidential – she would have a clearcut fifth amendment right not to testify.
No she wouldn’t — Fitzgerald could just grant her immunity and compel her testify to the grand jury. He doesn’t want Miller, he wants Rove, and granting immunity is a standard prosecutorial tool for getting little piggies to squeal on big ones.
Judy is using the ONLY means available to keep from testifying in front of the grand jury, when every other journalist involved has found a way to do it.
Why?

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 17 2005 6:34 utc | 39

She deserves no more protection than you and I, ie: no special journalistic privileges, if she chose to become a government agent.
Is that so hard to grasp?

Posted by: Lupin | Jul 17 2005 6:51 utc | 41

Any takers, even money, Cheney resigns/leaves office within a year?
He ran the bogus intellegence, he ran the war through his clowns, he got the money.
Seems to me there are some powerful people after him now. Rove is just a whore, he can disappear at any time and it will change nothing.
Esoteric as we are, victory will not be achieved by battles and bombs, but by incantations in court and in the press, followed by health problems and resignations, or accidents of various types.
But, I don’t think he’ll go without a fight.

Posted by: Dick Durata | Jul 17 2005 6:54 utc | 43

For a while now its seemed plausable that Miller has been more than just a zelot reporter, and that going before the grand jury might force her to reveal more than ideological affinity. The CIA is not beyond consideration as providing “support” as Tenent was obviously (slam dunk) on the war team, and also signing the checks, if not further working on the political(ization) of intellegence — even if seen within the agency as heracy.
This might also explain why the Times has (enthusiastically) gotten behind her refusal to testify, because any such linkage would made public would do to its reputation, what it would do to hers.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 17 2005 8:23 utc | 45

Fitzgerald could just grant her immunity and compel her testify to the grand jury.
True. But if he has done this, we would certainly know, yes? Therefore, she’s not a target.

Posted by: Ralph Kramden | Jul 17 2005 13:14 utc | 47

There are numerous reasons for this
??
not challenging, just want more here.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 17 2005 15:52 utc | 49

Annie – thick skull? You say that Miller’s not a target. That’s all I’m saying here. It seems irresponsible and illogical to speculate that she’s guilty of a treason-level offense, or anything more than contempt at this point. (But I won’t pretend to know the difference between contempt and “criminal contempt”.)
And no, I don’t think Fitzgerald will let her off this hook. Nor should he.

Posted by: Ralph Kramden | Jul 17 2005 16:09 utc | 51

@mistah charley,
there’s more to the miller beer jingle cultural history:
ask any USAF bombing pilot what time is miller time. [cue the afterburners going off into the sunset, like cowboys at the end of a movie.]
given that judy miller provided the assist for the Iraq invasion, Billmon’s reference to “And now it’s Miller time” is spot on.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 17 2005 17:34 utc | 53

New to posting at this site, I inadvertently posted the following comments under the ‘wrong’ article. Apologies to any who have already seen this, a response to Billmon’s extreme quandary over the Miller, First Amendment, journalist ethics issues.
First of all, the main reason you appear to be querying yourself into such a confused dither is that you do not appear to be addressing the fundamental purpose of the freedom of the press. For me, doing so greatly simplifies matters.
I am not a journalist, but a psychologist. At the risk of revealing a tidbit of proprietary info here, I’ll share one interesting question from one test from one measure in our bag of tricks in evaluating various aspects of human cognition. The question is:
Why is a free press important in a democracy?
The one-point answers are such as ‘so everyone gets all the facts,’ or ‘so all the information can be published.’ Pedestrian; shallow.
The two-point answer, however, must satisfy this conceptual understanding: ‘The press must be free from influence by those in power so that abuses of power, especially by those in government, can be exposed.’
Note first how this second perspective takes into account the larger focus of the entire Constitution itself, which – to my mind – documents not just our right but our responsibility as citizens to at every moment question those in power and hold them accountable.
Note next how the first perspective is, by comparison, entirely flat-footed, limiting itself to the narrow path of the ‘rights’ of the journalist and the papers who publish them. It seems to me that this has been the arena of this debate, and it exposes just how far the press has fallen and how little they understand their charge as the Fourth Estate.
You almost got it, Billmon; seduced by Kovach’s accuracy criterion, you astutely reasoned that even protecting a source of accurate info can be malicious…. This is almost to the point.
The point is – and please recognize that the judge who put Miller away actually got this point and so does Fitzgerald (see the last line of Blumenthal’s latest account of this scandal where Fitz is quoted) – Miller is clearly protecting someone who is abusing their position of power. This is what the entire debate should be about, not whether or not a source is protected. Protection of a source is merely secondary to whether or not the source is blowing the whistle on abuses of power, such as was the case with Ellsberg. The Plame/Miller/Rove scandal is NOT even close to that caliber; in fact, it is entirely antithetical to it.
Greg Palast actually asked the appropriate question with regard to all this in his latest post, one I’ve been wondering about for two years now. Why did all these reporters who were leaked this info – and who now are being painted in near noble light for refusing to print the leak – fail to print the REAL story, which should have been: TOP WH OFFICIALS LEAK CIA IDENTITY FOR POLITICAL REVENGE! Talk about sleeping on the job.
As a final point, you bring up the interesting notion of Nuremberg principles here. I’ll remind you that there was one defendant from the press tried at those trials. In fact, he was the only non-military, non-government individual to be hanged there. His crime, as the jurists saw it, was his abuse of the press in order to stir the hatred and violence necessary to support the Nazi atrocities. His name was Julius Striecher and his paper was Der Sturmer.
In light of this historical episode, and certainly in light of the current atrocities committed in our names with a pack of lies, your hesitancy to ‘wade into the swamp’ of ethical questions is most disturbing. These episodes are slamming our faces in the muck of these ethical questions, and we cannot shy from them. In fact, these episodes remind us that we cannot at any moment EVER avoid them by ducking into the high and dry comfort zones that would seem to pose the easy answers. Because, as you see, avoiding the real and hard questions ultimately leads to confusion and a failure to see the hard answers in the long run.
And I daresay – again, I’m not a journalist – asking the question of who is served in the situation of a leak or a source with info is a good guideline in the matter. That gets to the core of the First Amendment principle; it MUST serve the citizenry, and NOT those in power. And though not a journalist, I am a citizen, and I’ll be damned if I’ll support anyone, journalist or no, who would claim First Amendment protection of a source whose abuse of power ethically requires exposure in the press in order to protect myself and my fellow citizens from that abuse.
Oh, and just to add a little spring in your step as you venture into the bog, the penalty for criminal contempt appears to have no limit, and theoretically can be life in prison.
I champion your dedication to exposure of truth; please continue to do so with an equal dedication to the deepest ethical and Constitutional considerations.

Posted by: lll | Jul 18 2005 5:39 utc | 55