LAT op-ed: Arianna is not buying Judy Miller's "laughable" story!

[DeepModem Mom]

Who is Judy Miller kidding?
The New York Times reporter needs to write the truth about her involvment in Plamegate.

By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON


NOW THAT Judy Miller has finished testifying, finished spinning for the cameras on the courthouse steps, finished hugging her dog and finished eating that special meal she wanted her husband to prepare, she needs to do what Time reporter Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate....

***

The story being pitched to the public — that Miller was a heroic, principled martyr who sacrificed her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity, then fulfilled her "civic duty" after she "finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver" from her source — is laughable.

Indeed, it's already been greeted skeptically by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources at the Times; 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere, and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby's lawyer, who told the Washington Post that he informed Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby's waiver "was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify."

It defies credulity for Miller and the Times 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 it really thinks they'll buy the "Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver" line?...

***

The Plame scandal took shape not only when the White House was under attack but when Miller herself was increasingly being attacked by critics for her deeply flawed dispatches....The inescapable fact is that Miller — intentionally or unintentionally — worked hand in glove in helping the White House propaganda machine sell the war in Iraq. And that includes Libby and his boss, Dick Cheney....


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-huffington1oct01,0,3859017.story?track=hpmostemailedlink

[BlueCaliDem]

1. Judith Miller's Motives for going to Prison are suspect AT BEST...

Shortly before she and Matt Cooper were heading for Federal prison, reports of her motives for doing so already circulated the progressive internet blogs question "why".

Since Mrs. Miller was one of( if not the ) most outspoken cheerleader for the * Administration's rush to war, progressives everywhere were skeptical about her grandstanding--and the fact that talking heads were "upset" about her reasoning behind willing to go to prison to "protect her source(s)".

Protect her "sources"??? Protecting criminals who have outed a covert CIA agent's identity in retaliation for being exposed as the liars the * Administration's chickenhawks truly are just to circumvent the Oil for Food Sanctions for even MORE oil through war?!?

That's a noble thing???

Well, if one watched and listened the corporate owned, rightwing biased media preceding Judith Miller's walk to the Big House, that's what one would hear.

Having watched her many times give opinion on Mega-Mouth Matthew's "Hardball for Progressives, Democrats and Liberals/ Softball for Repubs of ALL Ilk" show, I came away thinking that inspite of her "kind" smiles, the b**ch was as rightwing as Bitter-B**ch Coulter, only with a layer of, you guessed it, extra sugar.

I for one, wasn't at all dismayed that she headed on to the big house. I am dismayed that she didn't STAY in there!

[spindrifter]

2. Go Arianna!

Based on what I've seen and what I recall as the Plamegate matter has unfolded, Arianna seems to be calling this one right on. As I recall, Cooper was even kind of flummoxed by Miller's decision that she couldn't disclose her info.
I firmly believe that the timing she is using here is designed to make her story the most newsworthy, since recency is a powerful tool in narration because people are likely to believe what they heard last.

[grannylib]

3. Obvious as hell that she was working closely with the corrupt WH to

promote its lies.
She's no heroine, she's a whore.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. No, you are jumping to conclusions.

Posted by grannylib:

Obvious as hell that she was working closely with the corrupt WH to promote its lies. She's no heroine, she's a whore.

No, you are jumping to conclusions. It is by no means obvious. Consider the fact that Libby, deep in the Whitehouse, through his lawyer, is shooting her story full of holes.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. NYT, fire the freak!!

So by going to jail she was trying to deflect from her being part of the propaganda machine by publishing lies and bs *and* at the same time try to come across as some sort of sincere little hero. What a freak. She needs about 2 years on the ass-kicking machine.

[Jara sang]

5. Makes for a better book if she did jail time.

plus she had the time to write it while in jail.

[Straight Shooter]

7. Ding ding ding!! We have a winner!

Judas (sic) Miller is almost a household name now. But since when did going to prison become a badge of honor?

[johnnydrama]

8. the real story

What it looks like to me, is that what Judy wanted was not the ok from Libby because she already had it.

What she really wanted was the guarantee from Fitzgerald that she would only answer about the Plame case.

Fitzgerald is no Ken Starr. He's looking at Plame and only Plame, where Starr looked at everything and anything he could get his hands on.

What Judy doesn't want to testify about is her relationship with Libby and her WMD reporting.

That would open up the whole sham that was her reporting, and how the White House manipulated the press into reporting.

Her source was Libby. Cheney went on TV saying that "the New York Times is reporting" and then spouted the WMD crap that he was the initial source for.