Girl Reporters Gone Wild!
As more detail emerges about Judy Miller’s Plamegate role, it’s increasingly clear (well, it was clear already, but now it’s highlighted, underlined, and bolded) that she’s got no business calling herself a reporter, and would more-accurately be described as an administration mole. So, thanks Times; thanks Judy.
Kevin Drum: Miller’s memory.
Miller’s excuse for her forgetfulness is that “It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses.” But it’s not a matter of Miller not remembering a trivial detail two years after the fact. It’s a question of whether she remembered it a week after the fact.
Answer: of course she did. And if she remembered it then, she certainly remembers it now. She just doesn’t want to say so.
Josh Marshall: Quite a lot is contained…
The only editorial accountability imposed on Miller was that she not write on Iraq or unconventional weapons. And yet, Keller concedes, she seemed to self-assign her way back into the same territory. I don’t know what examples Keller has in mind. But a good place to start is Miller’s inexplicable coverage of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal as recently as this past summer.
Not only is the whole Oil-for-Food story by definition about Iraq, it is also far more deeply tied to the weapons back story than it appears to on the surface. One need only note that the purported documents which gave birth to the most inflammatory charges were ‘discovered’ by Ahmed Chalabi.
So it seems that Miller was literally out of (editorial) control at the Times not only after the WMD stories but after they were discredited as well.
And more Josh Marshall: I’ve been out for most of the day…
…But in this case it certainly seems as though the tacit bargain between Miller and Libby was that Libby would provide Miller with information in exchange for her assistance in deceiving her readers. And that violates the rule or principle that amounts to the Occam’s Razor of journalistic ethics — fundamental honesty with your readers.
See also Mark A. R. Kleiman’s The spike.
