Judy Miller Died For Your Sins

DLC Dick Cohen is the latest to install Judy Fucking-Miller on a pedestal, albeit one constructed of sand:

Before Judith Miller of the New York Times went to jail for not revealing her sources, I offered her my services. I suggested that she tell me her source and then, once she was in jail, I would reveal that I knew, and the special prosecutor would jail me as well -- but not before I told another journalist. After four score and seven of us were in the calaboose, the prosecutor would -- like the British facing the indomitable Gandhi -- collapse before our moral force and leave us to honor our solemn commitments as we have done since time immemorial. I now know my plan would have failed. Apres moi, as the late Louis XV once said, too much of the press would still be writing about how Miller deserves her fate.

The way to honor a confidentiality pledge is to betray your source to Richard Cohen. Frankly, no one would care if Cohen was locked up. And the WaPo editorial page would improve considerably.

The most oft-heard and fervent denunciation of Miller amounts to a political indictment: She was wrong about the war in Iraq. By that, these people mean that Miller wrote stories for the Times that buttressed the administration's argument that Iraq possessed fearsome weapons of mass destruction -- none of which were ever found. Miller, however, was not the only one writing such stories. It seems that much of the press, not to mention the Bush administration itself, was relying on a clique of ill-informed or outright deceitful sources who maintained that Saddam Hussein had these weapons by the barnful. Contradictory evidence was ignored.

It's possible that Miller came across dissenting arms experts or intelligence officials and failed to take notice of them. It is also possible that after the war she had a stake in perpetuating the WMD canard and failed to report that none of the weapons existed. These and other allegations have been brooded about in journalistic circles and on blogs where the usual journalistic standards of proof are for some reason suspended. I do know that Miller was not, as some irrationally insist, solely responsible for taking the United States to war -- no matter how influential her newspaper may be. Let me go out on a limb: George Bush would have gone to war without Judith Miller.

Do you mean, Dick, the usual journalistic standards of proof that Miller followed? Apparently Cohen is only bothered by half-assery (to put the most charitable spin on it) not committed by a friend and colleague.

Yes, Richard, some may be happy at Miller's fate because she was a dishonest reporter. But the reason she is in prison is that there is no journalist/source privilege. That, and not Miller's well-deserved unpopularity, is the real story.