Reminds me of when "Brownie" announced that he was retiring from FEMA. A beginning step in the NYT rhebilitating itself. What a disgrace the media has been by assisting in the deceiving of the American public leading up to the Iraq War Maybe Judy can work for a Rupert Murdoch paper (she seems a natural.) Perhaps a talking head at Faux News. ******* Judith Miller Retires From the N.Y. Times By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago NEW YORK - Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who was first lionized, then vilified by her own newspaper for her role in the CIA leak case, has retired from the Times, the paper announced Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT Miller, who joined the Times in 1977 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for reporting on global terrorism, had been negotiating with the paper for several weeks about her future. She is 57. She spent 85 days in jail over the summer for refusing to testify about her conversations with a confidential source. But after her release, Miller was criticized harshly and publicly by Times editors and writers for her actions in the CIA leak case and for her reporting during the run-up to the Iraq war, later discredited, indicating that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Miller did not immediately respond to an e-mail or answer her telephone. "We are grateful to Judy for her significant personal sacrifice to defend an important journalistic principle," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement. "I respect her decision to retire from The Times and wish her well." The paper had initially been publicly supportive of Miller, and waged a long and costly legal battle on her behalf after she refused to tell a grand jury about conversations she had with I. Lewis Libby, then chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame is the wife a Bush administration critic. After Miller ultimately decided to testify, saying Libby had given her permission to do so, the Times ran an article depicting Miller as a rogue reporter who battled with editors and colleagues. In a subsequent staff memo, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said Miller also appeared to have misled editors about her "entanglement" with Libby. Miller, who did not immediately return to work for the Times after her release, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that she had been "terribly sad" about the rift. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051109...zm0JvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA
How many of the people who are cracking on Miller actually read any of her work or knew who she was before the war in Iraq? She seems to be target de jour for the anti-Bush croud only because her protected source happens to be somebody the anti-Bush croud wanted to flay. I think that just as easily, if she had been protecting a Clintonian source, she would be their hero. That's just wrong. She's not some ultra-conservative lap dog. She was just a journalist who tried to protect her sources, something that most of her haters didn't have a problem with when it came to the Watergate break in, and she's being judged not for her actions, but for who her ethics seem to benifit.
I could care less if she's a lap dog of Bush, or at times a liberal on issues. She has blood in her hands, simple as that.
You are right. I never heard of her before. Perhaps she did some good work. I hope so-- given her Pulitzer. Her disgraceful reporting on wmd and Iraq and her bs role with Libby is grounds for firing and she was a disgrace to her paper and journalism. She will probably succeed in getting her editor fired, too. The Judith Miller story is not just that of a reporter who was trying to protect her sources. It is disengenuous to reduce complaints about her Iraq work to that. Ottoman, while you may have like some of her prior work, though frankly given her work with Chalabi and wmd, I would wonder about the accuracy of that reporting, I am puzzled why you are such a defender of her.
The reason why she is on my "bad" list is because her reporting on the IRaq, WMD, and Chalabi issues was wrong. She didn't do her job, and her reporting was substandard. I remember her name but none of her specific articles prior to Iraq. I do remember article after article of her Iraq coverage being shown to be wrong. That made her a journalist without credibility, and someone that was doing a poor job. For the record I was against her being imprisoned. I believe in the 1st amendment and believe it is a bad idea to jail anyone.
Her forced retirement, however, is all about Scooter Libby. Again, let me go back to the Watergate issue. What Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat did was, I am lead to understand, a violation of the law. If a Federal judge had held Woodward & Bernstein on contempt for not going before a grand jury to reveal sources, I imagine you would have supported them? The ability of the press to protect sources, both sources of good useful info and bad, destructive info is sacred. The person who bears the responsibility for any issues is the person who speaks to the press. Don't kill the messenger, and all that. As for any of her reporting on Iraq, I'll just say that she's not the only person to be mistaken on this count. Until we decide to run a pogrom and crucify everybody who was mislead, I don't particularly see why she should be roasted over that fire. Alot of my reaction comes from what I would describe as gratuitous displays of schadenfreude from traditional liberal media sources. I don't even really mind that people think she should be fired, (even though I firmly disagree with that position and am embarassed for the Times) I really just hate how so many people seem to be dancing on her grave. This article from the "Village Voice" titled "Top 10 Career Moves for Judith Miller" is a pretty good example of what I speak of. Here is their list: Becomes recipient of new Prisoner of Conscience Chair at American Enterprise Institute (endowed by Conrad Black and Richard Perle, using money from dubious Hollinger dealings); as a sideline, opens "Iraqi National Cafe" just outside AEI's Wohlstetter Auditorium with Laurie Mylroie Founds First Amendment Center for Reporters Who are Covering for Government Sources Conspiring to Attack Whistleblowers Incorporates Pedicures for Prisoners, an advocacy groups for the right of incarcerated elite journalists to get a little pampering while waiting for grand jury terms to expire Writes series of books, including memoir (Guns, Germs and Steel Bars) and how-to book on subverting U.S. newspaper of record (Valerie Plame Has 99 Names) Eventually, Lou Dobbs and others come to their senses and stop uncritically venerating her; backlash become so intense that she desires anonymity and, fondly recalling her run-in in Aspen with Scooter Libby, drifts out West and quietly finds work as rodeo clown After Karen Hughes fails, becomes next Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Gets job offer to join crack fake-news team at "The Daily Show." (Memo to Jon Stewart: Watch your desk) Prevails on Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller to change New York Times motto from "All The News That's Fit to Print" to "Whatever Miss Run Amok Thinks She Can Get Away With, We Run It" Keller and Sulzberger decide to go head-to-head with CNN on media criticism; Discovery Times channel debuts "Reliable Sources with Judith Miller" Keller and Sulzberger announce new job for Miller at Times: ombudsman That's just mean. I guarantee that she has done more useful and dangerous important reporting than whatever editorial page wonk who wrote that snearing bit from the editorial office that he has never ventured more than 50 miles from. If what she has done is so unpardonable, we should be mourning the demise of a once great journalist, not throwing eggs at her as we kick her out the back door.
No, Her forced retirement is all about the fact that she was publicly exposed misleading Fitzgerald, the grand jury, as well as her colleagues and superiors at the Times. The fact is she should have been fired earlier for her faulty reporting on WMDs. Reputable reporters do not work as stenographers for their sources, they actually investigate the credibility of their claims before publishing their stories, unless they are stunningly incompetent or have another agenda.
That may be mean, but it doesn't change the fact that she published stories that weren't accurate, and could have been checked. She did so repeatedly and always erred in a way that helped one particular side. No matter what she did in the past, she deserved to lose her job over that.
