Miller Walks: The Plot Thickens

[rodeodance]

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0930-24.htm

Published on Friday, September 30, 2005 by the Huffington Post
Miller Walks: The Plot Thickens
by Arianna Huffington


It’s time for Judy Miller and Arthur Sulzberger to change their talking points.

The claim that Miller “has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver” is laughable… and, indeed, has already been laughed at by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources within the Times 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere (see here, here, and here) and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby’s lawyer, who told the Washington Post yesterday that he informed Miller’s attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby’s waiver “was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify”.

So it defies credulity for Miller, Sulzberger, and Bill Keller to keep insisting that Libby’s earlier waiver was coerced when Libby says that it wasn’t. I don’t have much good to say about the vice president’s chief of staff, but I don’t doubt that he knows the difference between being coerced and acting on his own free will. How deep is the Times’ contempt for its readers that they really think they’ll buy the “Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver” line?

The truth of the matter is there is no way that the New York Times editorial claiming “it should be clear…that Ms. Miller is not going to change her mind” can be squared with Ms. Miller changing her mind. And there is no way to accept at face value Miller’s grandstanding about “fighting for the cause of the free flow of information.” Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?
.........

What made her refuse Libby’s waiver when it was first offered but accept it now? (Especially since Judge Hogan had told Miller that “she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she ‘alleges she is protecting’ had already released her from her promise of confidentiality.”)

[napi21]

1. Ever since this was announed last night, I've been saying there's

something else going on here. I've heard it's because she was writing a book and the jail time will make it more saleable. Maybe. But there's still something else going on here. I have a feeling it has something to do with Bolton's visit to her about a week ago. I still think Bilton is involved in this Plame case. I've got a lot of different speculations, but I'm willing to wait and find out what happens when Fitz makes his announcements. I bet they're going to be nedt week some time.

[OneBlueSky]

2. a lot of very powerful Republican visited her in jail . . .

social calls? . . . offers to help redecorate her cell with IKEA furniture? . . . providing moral support? . . .

yeah . . . right . . .

something's happening and we don't know what it is -- do we, Mrs. Jones? . . .

[MasonJar]

3. She needed the deal, because she's right in the middle of this

malicious travesty. That is my take on it.