Juan Cole: Judy Miller and the Neocons

[understandinglife]

Judy Miller and the neocons

Arrogance, poor editing, and getting too close to her sources -- not ideology -- led to her fall.

By Juan Cole

October 14, 2005

New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified again on Wednesday before a grand jury regarding allegations that Irving Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, outed an undercover CIA operative in summer of 2003. After spending 85 days in jail for refusing to testify before the grand jury, Miller was released after receiving a personal waiver from Libby -- who turned out to be her confidential source.

Miller's reputation had already been deeply sullied by her inaccurate and one-sided reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction before the war. Questions have swirled about her relationship with the small coterie of neoconservatives, including Libby, who staffed key positions in the Bush administration, and who were allied with Ahmad Chalabi, a corrupt Iraqi expatriate and notorious liar who became Miller's principal source on WMD issues. Suspicions that Miller had crossed an ethical line and grown too close to her sources increased after the waiver letter she received from Libby was disclosed. That letter ended with this bizarre, highly personal passage: "You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover -- Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work -- and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby."

All of which raises the question: Should Miller herself be understood as a neocon?

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In the end, Miller's decline seems due more to professional ambition than ideological conviction -- although her own beliefs clearly grew closer to the neocons'. "While Miller might not have intended to march in lockstep with these hawks, she was caught up in an almost irresistible cycle," Foer writes. "Because she kept printing the neocon party line, the neocons kept coming to her with huge stories and great quotes, constantly expanding her access." In the end, it seems that Miller will go down in history not so much as a true believer as a useful idiot.

A long, detailed article:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/14/neocon/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/14/neocon/index1.html

Will be interested in the discussion that develops once folk have had time to read the full article.


Peace.

[BillZBubb]

1. "Useful Idiot" sums Miller up perfectly.

The neocons played the dumbass like bongo drums.

[rodeodance]

3. useful idiot.------this is go down in hx!

[No Exit]

2. Thanks. I'm about to read it. But I already have a question about Miller

Miller had connections in the middle east, due to her previous work there. It goes w/o saying that, compared to the average person, she must also have had a certain amount of expertise about the ME.

Some of us believe that there was a plan to strategically place fabricated evidence of WMDs. In fact, some would argue that this was actually done in some instances--but that the results were less than satisfactory to the VP's office and other neocons/warmongers.

Could Miller have been complicit in such plans? That is, could she have been part of the (false) story, rather than a mere reporter of the story?

[BurtWorm]

9. After reading Cole's piece, it seems plausible that Milller saw herself

as part of the story, though not necessarily in the story you refer to. I think she may have seen herself as a John Reed of the Iraqi (pan-Arabic) revolution--an invested partisan reporter hoping for her "Ten Days that Shook the World." She seems to have lost her objectivity around the time PNAC arose.

[H2O Man]

4. I think she is

neither a neocon or useful idiot.

[Lexingtonian]

5. Have a look at her book on the Holocaust.

It's more than enough proof of both things at the same time.

[Disturbed]

6. Ms. Miller was a complicit actor in the illegal Invasion of Iraq.

I feel that she is a slimy opportunist.

[H2O Man]

10. Right.

There are other possibilities besides her being either a neocon fellow traveler or an innocent dupe.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Operative comes to mind...coupled with the word "intelligence"...

...but not an agent of any intelligence group most people would readily recognize.

IMHO, she had to have been an agent of the shadowy Pentagon-based, NeoCon-led OSP/OSI...her writings and actions can only be explained by a very close relationship with that organization.

[H2O Man]

12. I agree.

It explains why she purposely lied to the American public, and was willing to be incarcerated. Neither of the first two choices adequately explains those two, in my opinion.

[H2O Man]

8. While I have not

read Judith's book on the Holocaust, and am not interested in doing so, I know enough about her to be convinced that the options of who and what she may be go well beyond those two.

[Demoiselle]

7. I read it all. Probably more of a dupe than an accomplice....but...

maybe it's not all that easy to separate the two. HOW could she tell that aluminum tube story with a straight face? Maybe there comes a time when you 're in so deep that you don't dare look at the truth anymore and you actually turn from idiot to conspirator.

[Neil Lisst]

13. I still think she's guilty as sin.

She was an actor in this thing, not just a journalist. She was helping Rove and Libby do their dirty work. Hell, she may have been the one who told them about Plame, in June, 2003.


http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst