Judith Miller: Journalism's Big Disappointment

Posted on October 17, 2005

What an utter disappointment. Judith Miller goes to jail to protect a source, so she says. Then after tiring of prison life and fun visits with John Bolton, she decides to sing like a bird for Patrick Fitzgerald. And what did she say when asked who told her the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame? She can't remember. "As I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from," she says. In her unbelievably vague, rambling essay for The New York Times, she raises many more questions about her bizarre behavior during this case.

Soon afterward Mr. Libby raised the subject of Mr. Wilson's wife for the first time. I wrote in my notes, inside parentheses, "Wife works in bureau?" I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the C.I.A. The prosecutor asked me whether the word "bureau" might not mean the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, I told him, normally. But Mr. Libby had been discussing the C.I.A., and therefore my impression was that he had been speaking about a particular bureau within the agency that dealt with the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. As to the question mark, I said I wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe it meant I found the statement interesting. Maybe Mr. Libby was not certain whether Mr. Wilson's wife actually worked there.
What was evident, I told the grand jury, was Mr. Libby's anger that Mr. Bush might have made inaccurate statements because the C.I.A. failed to share doubts about the Iraq intelligence.

The entire piece is riddled with strange quotes. "Maybe it meant" "The notes state"...like she wasn't even present at the telephone calls in question. Judy, Judy, Judy, who are you really protecting? Because it sure isn't Scooter Libby.