Thought Lou Dobbs was going to start crying about Judith Miller last night

[NNN0LHI]

Legal Analysts Critical of N.Y. Times Reporter's Stance in Leak Probe
Legal Analysts Critical of N.Y. Times Reporter's Stance in Leak Probe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201402.html

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; Page A07


Tim Russert of NBC, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and Matthew Cooper of Time were all subpoenaed in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. But only New York Times reporter Judith Miller is in jail....Although many media advocates hail Miller's sacrifice for what she and the Times see as a bedrock journalistic principle of protecting a promise to a source, some legal analysts say her imprisonment stems from a confrontational legal strategy adopted by the Times.

Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, said journalists, like doctors and lawyers, are under no obligation to remain silent about a source who has waived confidentiality. "It's the source's privilege, not the reporter's," he said. "If the source doesn't want confidentiality, the reporter has no business insisting on it. . . . If it's a matter of conscience instead of a matter of law, you can do whatever you want. As a legal matter, it's absurd."...

***

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said "the Times's legal strategy was to back up their reporter. This was Judy, and she said right up front, 'I'm not cooperating, period.' " She said Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "is willing to stand on this principle, and I don't think there's any way he would have tried to talk her into compromising."

Stone and other legal experts say they assume that Novak has testified under some sort of waiver or compromise. Miller, by contrast, never wrote a story about the Plame matter.

Miller was not protecting a classic whistle-blower bent on exposing wrongdoing, Stone said, but rather officials who were seeking to discredit Wilson. "In this context, you're talking about people who were violating the law and manipulating the press," he said....

[KittyWampus]

1. this is from KURTZ? That he'd put Stone's righteous words in print seems

almost to hard to believe.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Stone Should Be A Talking Head

Beautiful! This is how this issue should be framed.

you're talking about people who were violating the law and manipulating the press

Yes, Miller wasn't protecting a source that would help an investigation, her silence is keeping this investigation from being concluded. Deep Throat didn't impede the Watergate investigation, did he? Miller sure as hell is.

It wouldn't hurt is some intrepid "journalist" or maybe one of those born-agains we're starting to see pop up in the White House press room, would like to investigate Ms. Miller's past writings and how she has been used to relay misinformation on those pages Mr. Sultzberger is so eager to defend.

[MasonJar]

3. Let's face it; Miller is undoubtedly saving her own skin by not

testifying. I bet she's knee deep in this c__p.

[NNN0LHI]

4. You darn right. She is protecting herself not her source

But around here Lou Dobbs is da man.

Don

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Yup, others think so to.

Plame Games Originated with Judith Miller

The pundits are slobbering all over their keyboards writing odes to Judith Miller -- currently in jail for refusing to identify confidential sources. Perhaps these editorial writers have yet to digest that the administration insiders in question are not “whistleblowers” out to expose a government scandal. In fact, these individuals are felons who committed a national security crime to punish one Joseph Wilson -- the first whistleblower to reveal that the intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq was fixed.

All this fuss about the First Amendment and the public’s right to know is a smokescreen. The mainstream press has no real fear from outside censors -- if only because they do such a fine job of censorship without a need for government intervention. In fact, the seven or eight mass media conglomerates that dominate the collection and distribution of news often act like a media Gestapo that controls the exact dosage of information they set as our daily allowance. We should never lose sight of the fact that we live under a media controlled state -- a virtual Murdochracy where Rupert Murdoch combines forces with Arthur Sulzberger to start wars and cut estate taxes. They did more to quash anti-war dissent than the Bush administration could ever hope to do. Could the Bush administration have launched this invasion without the able assistance of the folks at CNN, FOX, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal?

<snip>

Judith Miller and The New York Times are protecting Judith Miller and The New York Times -- not the First Amendment. The real story here is that the Plame conspiracy originated with Miller. It was Miller who gave the administration insiders the information about Plame and gave them pointers on how to leak it to certain journalists like Novak. No doubt, her moves were coordinated with the usual suspects in the neo-con cabal who toiled with her on the WMD scam and had access to Valerie Plame’s secret identity. Richard Perle and company wrote the book on the “Art of the Leak.” That also helps explain why Miller didn’t write the story. She was the source and one of the masterminds behind the Plame game. Rove and other administration officials who joined the games were just middlemen in the transaction. Miller isn’t protecting her source -- she is protecting her conduits and fellow conspirators in the administration. The trick in playing the Plame game is to keep your eye on the bouncing ball. It was thrown by Miller -- bounced off Rove’s bald head and landed in Novak’s empty skull.

As to Miller’s motives -- one only has to consider her role in the WMD scam. The neo-cons were hoping that the war would go according to their rosy projections. In which case -- no one would bother to make a fuss about the missing WMDs. Just in case the invasion turned into a disaster -- they had a back-up plan to pin the “intelligence failures” on Ahmed Chalabi -- who was more than willing to “fall on his sword.” The trouble with the Niger Yellow Cake scam was that Chalabi could not credibly take the fall for that particular hoax. That’s why Joseph Wilson’s disclosure enraged them and that’s why they scrambled to discredit and punish him. The only thing they could come up with was that his wife was a CIA agent and that she had recommended him for the Niger assignment. Miller’s role was to get the ball rolling by contacting administration officials -- including Rove -- and coaching them on how to defuse the Wilson bombshell. Far from being a free speech martyr -- Judith Miller is a serious insider who had a major role in promoting the war and on disciplining those who stepped out of line.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Amr0712.htm

[NNN0LHI]

6. Now that sounds like what really happened here n/t