George Fwill says any Republican who would support Harriet Miers' nomination is unqualified to be president.

I could have told you that six years ago, George.

A long overdue addition to the Enemies List: Blanton's and Ashton's, by G.D. Frogsdong and some other folks.

More blogs will be added if I can overcome the waves of trepidation and depression which follow the thought of updating the blogroll. It sucks being your own flunky.

Too Little, Too Late

I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.

The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy -- her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur -- have never bothered me.

She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers.

Did I mention she's a bitch?

Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.

When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?

I'd love to answer that question, given my inside knowledge, but I've already spent three paragraphs on the seat-stealing anecdote and another on Judy's penchant for the big dicks.

As Bill said yesterday in an e-mail note to the staff, Judy seemed to have "misled" the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.

You know Bill. Many call him "nobody," but I couldn't do that.

It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like "Valerie Flame." Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she "did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby."

An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.

Yes, I've confirmed Miller is toast at the Times.

I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor.

Among other things.

But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.

And the editorial side of the paper should have ... Oops, I've almost run out of space.

Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered -- threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

And then who would hire me?

(Sorry, link not available)

Update (10/22/05): (Link not available unless you go here. It's up to you.)

Witness For The Prosecution

In his wish list to Santa, Helen Keller admits he was the last one to recognize the truth:

"(In November of 2003 Phil Taubman tried to ascertain whether any of our correspondents had been offered similar leaks. As we reported last Sunday, Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement.)"

How can the Times possibly allow Miller to write for it again?

And how can Fitzgerald possibly believe a word of Miller's testimony?

As long as the needle's out, the Times should lance both Keller and Pinchloaf.

(Link via Atrios)

Kass On Ass

Pop Idol, with judges Madonna, Camille Paglia and Andrew Sullivan.

"To give journalists such special privileges you have to define who is and who is not a journalist. That is harder to do in the age of the Internet. One reason for the explosion of hostility toward Miller and the Times is the resentment of the blogosphere. Blogging is, if anything, more like the kind of pamphleteering the Framers had in mind when they guaranteed 'freedom of the press' than are the New York Times or The Washington Post. But if everyone with a blog or an e-mail discussion board is a journalist, who isn't?"

People hate Miller and the NYT because they hate the blogosphere?

Frankly, very few people give a shit about the blogosphere. And it's Miller's defenders (for example, Keller, Abrams and Miller herself) who are criticizing the blogosphere for purportedly publishing lies and rumors about Miller. Further, a number of bloggers/pro-blog commentators are using the example of Miller's lies to assert a (mostly bogus) claim of the superiority of blogging, as well as the (somewhat less bogus) claim that bloggers called attention to Miller's lies.

I suppose Kinsley could mean resentment of Miller from the blogosphere or by the blogosphere is responsible for the anti-Miller explosion, but that claim wouldn't make sense in the context of the paragraph. If that's what Kinsley intended to say, he needs a better editor.

Judy Duranty

So says Jack Shafer at Slate. Perhaps a campaign to get Miller's Pulitzer revoked is in order.

Shafer also points out the obvious:

Conceding in the Times piece that her WMD reporting was "totally wrong," Miller proves she doesn't understand how journalism works when she says, "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could." That is a lie. Reporters aren't conduits through which sources pour information into newspapers. And sources aren't to blame if a reporter gets a story wrong. A real reporter tests his sources' findings against other evidence in hopes of discovering the truth, something Miller was apparently loath to do.

I'd go further. When sources lie to you, their lies are the story. And when a writer colludes with sources to spread lies, that is the story.

But those are two stories the Times will never tell.

Update: Arriana Huffington, writing from the future ("10.22.2005"), piles on.

Brent Bozell Watches It All For You

There's so much filth on FOX that television addict el-Bent Bozell needs two hands to write it all down.

So what has Rupert Murdoch done to arouse Brent's ire? Well, on Family Guy, there was a reenactment of Hugh Hewitt's meeting with George Bush on the Miers nomination:

This show's lack of any dignity whatsoever is proven by a parody of the classic children's tale of Pinocchio in which Geppetto bends over with his buttocks in front of Pinocchio's nose, then tries to get Pinocchio to lie, so that his nose will grow and, viewers are led to conclude, penetrate his anus.

And, on The Buckleys Arrested Development,

Other episodes have delved into the bizarre sexual proclivities of the main characters, such as Grandpa and Grandma's revelation that they derive sexual pleasure from being strangled with a belt.

Bozell also reveals that Family Guy is the "fifth-highest ranked-show among children ages 2 to 11." How Brent got two year olds to rank their viewing preferences is anyone's guess.

More here.

This sentence sounds fair:

Josh Medlin, 21, of Lynn, was sentenced Wednesday in Wayne County court to 30 hours of community service and $156 in court costs.

Autumn Is The Most Beautiful Season

As the days dwindle down to a precious few, I can't help but thinking what a beautiful month October has been.

And, on a totally and completely unrelated subject:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 -- As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.

With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the case said they were persuaded that Mr. Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the prosecutor's requests not to talk about the case.

1. Whining about how the "MSM" doesn't take their nonsense seriously, and

2. Making up even more nonsense.

I can't decide which is more pathetic. If these jackasses think the "MSM," FBI, OU, NPD, WSJ and Hinrichs' father are all lying to them, they should get up off their jackasses and do something to make their case instead of rehashing their fantasies about truckloads of fertilizer.

Bush Justice To Bloggers: Drop Dead

So who are the "opponents" who, per Kit Seelye, are opposed extending a federal reporter/source privilege to bloggers?

The Bush Department of Justice, that's who.

Chuck Rosenberg, a United States District Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee to express Bush Justice's "concerns" about the "Free Flow of Information Act of 2005" with respect to cases in which the Justice Department was a party. Here's what he said:

Fifth, the Department objects to the broad definition of "covered person" in section 5(2) that, inter alia, encompasses foreign media and foreign news agencies (including government-owned and -operated news agencies), some of which are hostile to the United States and some of which can, and have, acted in support of foreign terrorist organizations (a reporter of the Qatarian news network Al-Jazeera was recently convicted in Spain for acting as a financial courier for Al-Qaeda). The mere fact that such foreign media entities and their reporters may operate primarily abroad does not mean that they do so exclusively, or that their involvement in activity in the United States that may warrant the use of Federal compulsory process against them is a merely hypothetical prospect. Extending special privilege and legal protections to such entities in U.S. criminal and civil law enforcement proceedings, as this bill does, is entirely unwarranted and inconsistent with the Department's law enforcement mission and the war on terrorism.

Such an expansive definition of "covered person" could unintentionally offer a safe haven for criminals. As drafted, the definition invites criminals to cloak their activities under the guise of a "covered person," so as to avoid investigation by the Federal government. The overbroad definition of a "covered person" could be read to include any person or corporate entity whose employees or corporate subsidiaries publish a book, newspaper, or magazine; operate a radio or television broadcast station; or operate a news or wire service. Additionally, the definition arguably could include any person who sets up an Internet "blog" or any other activity to "disseminate information by print, broadcast, cable satellite[, etc.]," as set forth in the bill.

Chuckles doesn't explain, at least in his prepared remarks, why Bush Justice considers bloggers unworthy of the privilege. But his example of the reporter/courier is laughable. A reporter, like anyone else, has a constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. So a reporter's privilege wouldn't give any additional protection to a reporter committing a crime.

I wonder how many wingnut blowhards will criticize on the Administration on this.

Grand Old Police Blotter: (You're Ralph's) Vanderwall Edition

I almost missed this tidbit about Robin Vanderwall, convicted pedophile and alleged business associate of Ralph Reed.

The Washington Post reports:

Abramoff asked eLottery to write a check in June 2000 to Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). He also routed eLottery money to a Reed company, using two intermediaries, which had the effect of obscuring the source.

The eLottery money went first to Norquist's foundation, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), and then through a second group in Virginia Beach called the Faith and Family Alliance, before it reached Reed's company, Century Strategies. Norquist's group retained a share of the money as it passed through.

"I have 3 checks from elot: (1) 2 checks for $80K payable to ATR and (2) 1 check to TVC for $25K," Abramoff's assistant Susan Ralston e-mailed him on June 22, 2000. "Let me know exactly what to do next. Send to Grover? Send to Rev. Lou?"

Minutes later Abramoff responded, saying that the check for Sheldon's group should be sent directly to Sheldon, but that the checks for Norquist required special instructions: "Call Grover, tell him I am in Michigan and that I have two checks for him totaling 160 and need a check back for Faith and Family for $150K."

According to the e-mails, Reed provided the name and address where Norquist was supposed to send the money: to Robin Vanderwall at a location in Virginia Beach.

Vanderwall was director of the Faith and Family Alliance, a political advocacy group that was founded by two of Reed's colleagues and then turned over to Vanderwall, Vanderwall said and records show.

Vanderwall, a former Regent University Law School student and Republican operative, was later convicted of soliciting sex with minors via the Internet and is serving a seven-year term in Virginia state prison.

In a telephone interview, Vanderwall said that in July 2000 he was called by Reed's firm, Century Strategies, alerting him that he would be receiving a package. When it came, it contained a check payable to Vanderwall's group for $150,000 from Americans for Tax Reform, signed by Norquist. Vanderwall said he followed the instructions from Reed's firm -- depositing the money and then writing a check to Reed's firm for an identical amount.

"I was operating as a shell," Vanderwall said, adding that he was never told how the money was spent. He said: "I regret having had anything to do with it."

Ralph Reed, touched by a pedophile. (According to the pedophile.)

If Vanderwall's account is true, maybe he and Ralph can work together in the prison laundry.

(Found via Raising Kaine.)

Fuck Amok

(Apologies to Chuck Jones)

Judith Fucking-Miller is such an incompetent reporter that she misquotes herself:

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Ms. Miller said this so-called nondisclosure form was precisely what she had signed, with some modifications, adding that what she had meant to say in her published account was that she had had temporary access to classified information under rules set by her unit.

How do you get temporary access to information?

In Judy's case, you pretend to forget.

Then there's this:

Ms. Miller said that under the conditions set by the commander of the unit, Col. Richard R. McPhee, she had been allowed to discuss her most secret reporting with only the senior-most editors of The Times, who at the time were Howell Raines, the executive editor, and Gerald M. Boyd, the managing editor.

Secret reporting? What is hell is that: coded shout-outs to Scooter and Ahmed? Maybe she published it in the classified ads.

And, from the same article:

Opponents [of a federal shield law] also said the definition of who would be covered is too broad, including bloggers and criminals who pretend to be reporters.

Does that mean it would apply to all bloggers, or only bloggers to who pretend to be reporters? And what about reporters who pretend to be reporters? Or reporters who are criminals? It's so confusing.

Captain Hooker

That crusty seaman wannabe, Mister Ed, has pumped out another column for the Weakly Standard Online.

It starts like this:

ONE CAN DRAW CONCLUSIONS about the values of society by the places of worship it builds and the gods they revere in them.

Ancient Aztecs built temples to gods requiring bloody human sacrifices, while Zoroastrians largely concerned themselves with less murderous and more deeply spiritual centers of worship. Buddhists create peaceful areas for meditation; Christians and Muslims aspire to touch God in some manner through architectural means, giving places of sanctuary and prayer to their followers.

Having drained his reservior of deep thoughts on the subject of religious architecture, Mister Ed goes on to write about an incident in which some Minnesota Vikings players rented two tour boats for an evening cruise and allegedly invited some high-priced hookers to party with them. According to Ed, some of the players also were accused of harassing and/or abusing the ships' staff.

What moral does Ed derive from this tale? This one:

But what do we expect? When the main reason these multimillionaires get their communities to pay for their arena-temples is by extorting the desperation of other cities to host a team, why should the Golden Calf-like celebrations shock us?

Ed's just the man to melt down those prostitutes and make the Vikings drink them.

Apparently when our society abandoned the Lord to worship well-paid athletes, sexual decadence was the inevitable result. Ed opines that in the good old days, when NFL owners had to build their own stadiums, players never used obscenities or patronized prostitutes.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't seem to recall Ed making such a big deal about, say, the rapes at the Air Force Academy or the sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib. If he ever made the connection between militarism and sexual violence, I missed it. And I don't recall Ed's column positing that the generous financing of Christian churches has caused the many sex crimes and scandals in the Catholic Church and various fundie congregations.

Ed's imagined link between secularism and moral decay is absurd; his assertion that public subsidy of sport is leading to the decline of Western civilization is even more absurd.

Although I think there was a causal connection between George Bush's Kelorific stadium landgrab and Neil Bush's obssession with third-world prostitutes.

I also like the fact that the Standard has illustrated Ed's tale of degenerates at sea with an depiction of Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes on a cruise ship. Someone over there has a sense of humor (and it's not Larry Miller).

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist," - Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943, describing what is now legal and constitutional in the United States, under president Bush.

But he's wrong, of course. It's not constitutional and therefore, is not legal, no matter what Abu Gonzales and his thugs say.

TNR stands against a politics that is crystallized in laundry-list orations punctuated by buzz words that can mean one thing and then, too, exactly the opposite. This is a terrible time in the careers of freedom, of decency, of open societies. Demagogues from every side blur the vision of the citizenry, and we try to be clear and forthright. So we discomfort politicians and other magazines of the public business and of public ideas.

Then again, TNR stands for Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Charles Krauthammer, Mickey Kaus, Jacob Weisberg, Andrew Sullivan, Peter Beinart, Michael Kelly, Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass, so everything you've just read is a load of crap.

Sorry, Marty. You'll have to ask your wife for that extra $19.95.

There Is Nothing New Under The Son

Why is anyone surprised by the "criminalization of politics" defense from the Administration and its lackeys?

It's the one of the oldest tricks in the G.O.P. playbook.

Think The Unthinkable

No one disputes that Bush officials negligently and stupidly revealed Valerie Plame's undercover status. But after two years of digging, no evidence has emerged that anyone who worked for Bush and talked to reporters about Plame -- namely Rove or Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff -- knew she was undercover. And as nasty as they might be, it's not really thinkable that they would have known. You need a pretty low opinion of people in the White House to imagine they would knowingly foster the possible assassination of CIA assets in other countries for the sake of retaliation against someone who wrote an op-ed they didn't like in the New York Times.

Actually, there's plenty of evidence that Rove and Libby knew exactly what they were doing -- why else would they go to such lengths to conceal the fact that they were the sources of such information? If they thought Plame wasn't undercover, why wouldn't they pass along the information without demanding confidentiality and, in Libby's case, demanding a misleading attribution.

You can say that it's circumstantial evidence. You can say that there's evidence that contradicts it (although, as Weisberg would say, "no such evidence has emerged"). You can say that, to your mind, it's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But you can't say it's not evidence.

Of course, as others have already pointed out, the actual evidence -- sworn testimony and subpoenaed documents -- have not been made public. How can anyone say there's no evidence of a fact when they haven't seen the evidence?

These people, Mr. Weisberg, are people who sent -- and continue to send -- Americans to their deaths based on fraudulent WMD evidence and equally fraudulent concerns about democracy and homeland security. Why should they have any greater concern for the lives of Americans working for the CIA?

Update (10/21): Howie the Putz endorses Weisberg's "important piece."

Clownhaller Bruce Bartlett takes a bold stand: He'd rather whitewash the Reagan Administration's criminal legacy than Bush's:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 - In the latest sign of the deepening split among conservatives over how far to go in challenging President Bush, Bruce Bartlett, a Republican commentator who has been increasingly critical of the White House, was dismissed on Monday as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research group based in Dallas.

In a statement, the organization said the decision was made after Mr. Bartlett supplied its president, John C. Goodman, with the manuscript of his forthcoming book, "The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

Barlett throws down in his Clownhall column too.

The rats are deserting the sinking shit.

Exporting Kleptocracy

Can we send the Keyboarders over to "Shut it down!"?

In a move people involved in the case read as a sign that the end is near, Fitzgerald's spokesman yesterday told the Associated Press that the prosecutor planned to announce his conclusions in Washington, where the grand jury has been meeting, instead of Chicago, where the prosecutor is based. Some lawyers close to the case cited courthouse talk that Fitzgerald might announce his findings as early as tomorrow, though hard evidence about his intentions and timing remained elusive.

Ney Is Freedom Toast

Another G.O.P. scumbag feels the heat:

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) placed comments in the Congressional Record favorable to Abramoff's 2000 purchase of the casino boat company, SunCruz Casinos. Two years later, Ney sponsored legislation to reopen a casino for a Texas Indian tribe that Abramoff represented.

Ney approved a 2002 license for an Israeli telecommunications company to install antennas for the House. The company later paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying. It also donated $50,000 to a charity that Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for some of his lobbying activities.

Meanwhile, Ney accepted many favors from Abramoff, among them campaign contributions, dinners at the lobbyist's downtown restaurant, skybox fundraisers, including one at his MCI Center box, and a golfing trip to Scotland in August 2002. If statements made by Abramoff to tribal officials and in an e-mail are to be believed, Ney sought the Scotland trip after he agreed to help Abramoff's Texas Indian clients. Abramoff then arranged for his charity to pay for the trip, according to documents released by a Senate committee investigating the lobbyist.

Ney is under investigation by Florida federal prosecutors looking into Abramoff's acquisition of SunCruz, according to sources familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan were indicted in August on fraud charges related to the purchase.

Is there any Republican lawmaker in D.C. who isn't a bought and paid for corporate whore?

More Bad News

More bad news for the PowerAssClowns and the Bigot Malkin. The truth won't fit their "facts":

NORMAN, Okla. -- The University of Oklahoma student from Colorado who died after detonating an explosive device near a packed football stadium left a message on his computer that he was going to quit living, his father said.

The FBI read the message to the father of Joel Henry Hinrichs III on Friday, after Joel Henry Hinrichs Jr. came to Oklahoma to clear out his son's university-owned apartment.

The younger Hinrichs, 21, had a reputation as a loner and had struggled at times with his grades.

Joel Hinrichs Jr. said he understood investigators found the message on the computer screen when they arrived at the apartment.

"It was a single line of text on his computer," his father told The Oklahoman. "The cursor was still blinking at the end."

The elder Hinrichs, of Colorado Springs, said he could not recall the exact wording but said his son used profanity in the message and was obviously very angry.

"He wrote he was dissatisfied with the situation and was going to quit living," the father said.

The moral of the story: The only "truckload of fertilizer" here is that flowing from Johnny Hindlicker's orifices.

Helen Keller

He sees nothing and hears nothing.

And, unlike the other Helen, he cannot learn.

But Mr. Sulzberger and the paper's executive editor, Bill Keller, knew few details about Ms. Miller's conversations with her confidential source other than his name. They did not review Ms. Miller's notes. Mr. Keller said he learned about the "Valerie Flame" notation only this month. Mr. Sulzberger was told about it by Times reporters on Thursday.

...

Within a few weeks, in one of his first personnel moves, Mr. Keller told Ms. Miller that she could no longer cover Iraq and weapons issues. Even so, Mr. Keller said, "she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm."

Although criticism of Ms. Miller's Iraq coverage mounted, Mr. Keller waited until May 26, 2004, to publish an editors' note that criticized some of the paper's coverage of the run-up to the war.

...

The fact that Ms. Miller's judgment had been questioned in the past did not affect its stance. "The default position in a case like that is you support the reporter," Mr. Keller said.

...

It was in these early days that Mr. Keller and Mr. Sulzberger learned Mr. Libby's identity. Neither man asked Ms. Miller detailed questions about her conversations with him.

Both said they viewed the case as a matter of principle, which made the particulars less important. "I didn't interrogate her about the details of the interview," Mr. Keller said. "I didn't ask to see her notes. And I really didn't feel the need to do that."

...

"Judy believed Libby was afraid of her testimony," Mr. Keller said, noting that he did not know the basis for the fear. "She thought Libby had reason to be afraid of her testimony."

...

In August, Douglas Jehl and David Johnston, two other Washington reporters, sent a memo to the Washington bureau chief, Mr. Taubman, listing ideas for coverage of the case. Mr. Taubman said Mr. Keller did not want them pursued because of the risk of provoking Mr. Fitzgerald or exposing Mr. Libby while Ms. Miller was in jail.

On Sept. 29, Ms. Miller was released from jail and whisked by Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller to the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown for a massage, a manicure, a martini and a steak dinner.

Has anyone contacted Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd for comment?

Story Idea

Since the New York Times is pretending to be in self-examination mode, I've got a story idea for it:

"I got it totally wrong."

Story: How did Times permit that to happen?

Question to Condi Rice (paraphrase):

"You wouldn't be upset if Osama Bin Laden was killed in the Pakistan earthquake, would you?"

And, yes, here it is. The Condi '08 question.

Pull your head out, Russert.

Howie's Disinformation

Howie the Putz spreads disinformation. From the toady's column today:

Her notebook from that day includes the notation "Valerie Flame," but she says the name appeared in a different section of the notebook from her Libby interview notes and that she believes it came from another source who, Miller maintains, she cannot recall.

That raises the question of whether other administration officials discussed Plame's CIA status with Miller after Libby, by her recollection, was the first to raise it. By the time she and Libby discussed Plame again, by phone on July 12, Miller said, she had talked about Wilson's wife -- her notes from that conversation refer incorrectly to "Victoria Wilson" -- with other unidentified sources. Fitzgerald lost the opportunity to question Miller about these sources by agreeing, as part of the deal that led to her release from jail last month, to ask only about conversations with Libby.

Get your facts straight, you Republican hack.

On his teevee show, Howie spent as much time with friggin' Tom Friedman as on Miller. If it's not "the Negroes stole our newsroom," Howie's interest in Times scandals is very limited.

Update: Mickey Kaus is also peddling the tale that Fitzgerald got punked by Miller. Sorry, Mick. Fitzgerald's got more brains than you, Miller and Kurtz combined.

Holes, Part One

From Miller:

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.

I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.

From the Times article:

[On September 27, 2005,] Mr. Bennett, who by now had carefully reviewed Ms. Miller's extensive notes taken from two interviews with Mr. Libby, assured Mr. Fitzgerald that Ms. Miller had only one meaningful source. Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questions to Mr. Libby and the Wilson matter.

The obvious questions:

How could Bennett assure Fitzgerald that Libby was the only "meaningful source" if he only reviewed the notes from the Libby interviews?

How could Miller (through Bennett) represent that Libby was the only meaningful source when she allegedly couldn't recall where the "Valerie Flame" note came from, and denied it came from Libby?

How could either Bennett or Miller make such assurances at a time they had "forgotten" about the additional interview notes "found" in the NYT newsroom after Miller's release?

Bonus question: If the prosecutor was limiting questions to Libby and the Wilson matter, then he wasn't really limiting questions to Libby, now was he?