October 16, 2005
Judith Miller: "I
was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my
interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also
difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context
of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my
interview notes, for example, I wrote the name 'Valerie Flame.' Yet, as
I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from,
when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled."
and:"Mr.
Fitzgerald asked me about another entry in my notebook, where I had
written the words 'Valerie Flame,' clearly a reference to Ms. Plame.
Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to know whether the entry was based on my
conversations with Mr. Libby. I said I didn't think so. I said I
believed the information came from another source, whom I could not
recall."
Arianna Huffington:"This
is as believable as Woodward and Bernstein not recalling who Deep
Throat was. It also means that Judy went to jail to protect a source
she can't recall."
If Libby wasn't the source, the inescapable
logic is that the entire Libby waiver story was a red herring,
completely irrelevant. Since she can't remember her source, her jail
time couldn't possibly have been to protect the concept of confidential
sources or the Constitution.
I've noticed that the spin on this story is already to protect the New York Times
at the expense of Miller. She was a 'rogue' 'run amok' who 'lied' to
her editors, etc., etc. This completely ignores the fact that the
editors for months and months had continued to send her out to produce
obvious lies about the WMD, inexplicably continued to support her even
after the deception was revealed (to the extent of making a
laughingstock of the whole paper), and are still apparently unable to
explain themselves. From the publisher and the editors on down, there
was a concerted conspiracy in the New York Times to lie to the
American people to force an illegal attack on Iraq. It's that simple.
Miller was simply a pen-for-hire (and her feigned inability to remember
the source just means she's still on the payroll). If it wasn't her, it
would have been somebody else. Miller is guilty as hell, but more
guilty is the Times, all the way up through all the writers who
kept their heads down to protect their careers while the obvious lies
flew (and continue to keep their heads down), all the editors who were
knowing parts of the conspiracy, and the publisher, who, for reasons
unknown, led the conspiracy.
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