WP: Split Between Times & Miller? (attorney Bennett disputes Sulzberger)

[DeepModem Mom]

A Split Between The Times & Miller?
Editor Says Reporter May Have Misled The Newspaper in Plame Leak Case

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 22, 2005; Page C01


New York Times executives "fully encouraged" reporter Judith Miller in her refusal to testify in the CIA leak investigation, a stance that led to her jailing, and later told Miller she could not continue at the paper unless she wrote a first-person account, her attorney said yesterday.

The comments by Robert Bennett came as Executive Editor Bill Keller accused Miller of apparently misleading the newspaper about her dealings with Vice President Cheney's top aide, signaling the first public split between Miller and the management of a newspaper that had fully embraced her in the contentious legal battle.

Bennett, Miller's lawyer, said he argued with Times executives that her agreement with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify before a grand jury did not entitle her to put "in the newspaper" her off-the-record conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

Disputing a lengthy Times story last Sunday in which Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said that "this car had her hand on the wheel," Bennett said Sulzberger and Keller "were making it very clear what they thought she should do. . . . She may be controversial in some things, but the bottom line is she spent 85 days in jail, mostly on a principle which the New York Times fully encouraged her to assert." He added that the executives left the final decision to Miller.

Bennett's comments, in response to a reporter's inquiry, followed a memo to the Times staff in which Keller distanced himself from Miller even while acknowledging several mistakes on his part....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/21/AR2005102102037.html

[0007]

1. In my opinion Sulzberger and Keller should step down or take

the axe, they have not been on the square with the audience.

And Howard Kurtz should go to work for FAUX News.

[UpInArms]

2. Howard Kurtz is a gossip columnist, not a journalist

he makes me :puke:

[Frances]

14. I don't like Howard Kurtz either

But this particular article seems pretty objective to me. Did I miss something?

[goforit]

3. Agreed!!..But it is interesting to watch the NYTs fall & fall hard.

[0007]

9. And poor Judith will soon be all alone and perhaps doing time,

I hope! This woman has truly hurt this country by helping junior with the rape of Iraq.

[Critters2]

35. It's that time of year...

when the aspens start to turn.

[NashVegas]

33. In Keller's Defense, He Inherited the Mess from Raines

Not that what he's done with the paper since is anything to love.

[Canuckistanian]

4. I like how the headline treats them as equals

She's an EMPLOYEE, fire her!

[fishnfla]

5. Its about the war , stupid

This whole he-said, she-said bit ("heroic journalist"? :puke: ) is a shameful soap opera.

pardon my vernacular, but Judy Miller is a lying whore and treasonous bitch. She directly participated in the build-up to war and is now chin deep in the cover-up to the bogus WMD claims.

The truth died on the vine along time ago at the NYTimes. Bigger picture, people are dying every minute in Iraq.

[gratuitous]

8. That's it exactly

If this was some internal dust-up at the Times, I'd be sitting and munching popcorn and enjoying the show.

But an illegal invasion was launched partly on the basis of Dame Judith's reportage. Thousands and thousands of people have been maimed, tortured, and killed in horrible ways. Some of them were military personnel who trusted the government would use them responsibly in defense of the nation; others were civilians bombed into eternity with weapons they couldn't fight back against and couldn't get away from. This was a gigantic exercise in seeing just how far out of control Lil George could be. Oh, and his re-election, let us never lose sight of that. I suppose the war profiteering merits mention, as well.

And now Judy and Billy are whining about who hit who first. Disgraceful. In an honorable society, both of them would have committed ritual seppuku long ago.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Excellent placing of this in perspective, gratuitous.

If the Times leadership acted honorably, Keller and Miller would both be gone. And Pinch Sulzberger should hand over his responsibility for our "paper of record" to someone who has not shared a summer house with Judy Miller. I wonder if the Times ombudsman will step up again this week.

[fishnfla]

I emailed the omsbudman this am

I hope he rips them hard tomorrow. The irony being, for decades the RW has accussed rhetorically the NYT of being traitors to the country.

Now here it is in black and white grand jury transcripts: treason

[Verve]

6. Libby wouldn't let me testify, the NY times wouldn't let me testify.....

Miller is trying to make herself out to be the victim. This is clearly not the case. She was an active, vocal participant in writing false stories about WMD, and then trying to shield her criminal sources from justice.

If her world is crumbling around her, it's her own damn fault.

[salin]

11. she is a victim only of her arrogant belief that SHE should help

shape history and create news rather than honestly and objectively reporting it.

[bemildred]

7. I love it when they fight among themselves. nt

[SillyGoose]

12. Miller should be fired and so should Keller.

Shilling for the administration was more important to Miller than her own country and her responsibilities to the American people as a journalist. She's a dishonest hack whose only loyalty is to an agenda, not the country or its people. Keller should be canned for allowing her to run amok in the way that she has.

The longer Keller and the NYT gnash their teeth and wring their hands over the Miller problem, the faster they are stripped of any remaining credibility.

[Neil Lisst]

13. I always said she was done working for them.

And she is. Appears she wrote that last pathetic piece to fulfill some concept of her contractual duty before bailing.

She's got a book deal.

They ought to sue her for a piece of the book, since she was lying to them while putting the info together.

[Cha]

34. So many will be checking facts

in her book..what truths does she have to tell?

[Spazito]

15. I find this comment by Bennett very interesting

"...but the bottom line is she spent 85 days in jail, mostly on a principle which the New York Times fully encouraged her to assert."

MOSTLY on a principle???? What were the other reasons one has to wonder. Using that word in his response has to be deliberate, imo, which might mean the other reasons will be coming to light through Fitzgerald's investigation and the upcoming indictments.

[OKNancy]

16. Kick

:kick:

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Miller-N.Y. Times Spat Goes Public

OCt 22, 2005

WASHINGTON - In the latest fallout from the CIA leak investigation, reporter Judith Miller and The New York Times are engaging in a very public fight about her seeming lack of candor in the case.

In a memo to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller "seems to have misled" the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was not one of the recipients of a leak about the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Miller says Keller's criticism is "seriously inaccurate."

"I certainly never meant to mislead Phil, nor did I mislead him," Miller was quoted as saying in a Times story Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051022/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_investigation;_ylt=AvANCsudMbJb_DeVKcRJNBas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--


Oh poor, poor, pitiful Judy. Everybody is wrong except her. I hope she has many years in jail to stew about how unfair life can be.

[rosesaylavee]

18. I don't see the journalists lining up to defend

her like they did when she was in prison. Where did they all go???

Fools. She lied to everyone. Bet she misses them Aspens... and the time they all had THERE. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

[tularetom]

19. I think she has screwed up big time

She is trying to turn this into a pissing contest with NYT management who cannot afford another scandal. If she doesn't shut the fuck up her next employer will be faux news (after she gets out of the slammer that is).

[madaboutharry]

20. Dowd really went after her today.

Maureen Dowd lets Miss Judy have it. She writes about Miller being an arrogant Prima Donna in need have a tight editorial leash. Scroll to the bottom half of the page and see it here:

http://Cyphering.blogspot.com/2005/10/Judy-Miller-Show.]

[ellenfl]

28. link does not work for me. eom

[madaboutharry]

29. I know.

I tried to fix it.:argh:

[rocktivity]

30. Working link

link

Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room...Judy had moved from...Washington editor to...New York(-based) reporter...(S)he came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."

It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.

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...

You shouldn't have let her get away with that, Maureen! That's how people like her operate--so outrageously that your gut reaction is to cut, run, and deny that it happened. Yes, you "laughed it off," but you also capitulated--why? Out of respect for her former position? What respect did she show YOU? You laughed not from amusement or contempt, but to bandage the wound you inflicted upon yourself by allowing her to humiliate you that way.

Why didn't you at least attempt to retailiate? You could have whispered something like, "This seat belongs to the Times's DC representative, who is now me." Maybe you would have lost anyway, but you would have succeeded in teaching Miller that she should think twice before taking you on again!

:headbang:
rocknation

[Garbo 2004]

31. Dowd likely didn't care about the seat, Judy obviously did. And Dowd at

that point probably didn't think it was worth being on Judy's shit list for life. But obviously this column is. LOL

[senseandsensibility]

32. Thanks for the link

I've been trying to find one ever since the column came out!:)

[ellenfl]

36. thanks, i love maureen dowd. eom

[maryallen]

21. Not good enough, Phil ...

Fire the b*tch!

How many more people must she mislead?
How many more nations must she prod into war?
How many more soldiers must die?

Shame on the New York Times!
Shame, shame, shame!!!

[robbedvoter]

22. You should read Dowd's column: practically daring them to fire Judy,

Keller - or else! In the end she calls Judy a stenographer.

[fishnfla]

23. She's pretty bad at spin for a reporter

pretty handy with the lies though

[xultar]

24. Why are they still printing her frackin crap?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

25. Yeah..she didn't have an entanglement with Libby, she had it with Bolton

That's why he visited her twice in jail

[Straight Shooter]

26. Judas Miller ... the asp in The New York Times carpet. n/t

[jody]

27. Miller, an embedded WHIG operative to the NYT, not an embedded reporter.