Tin Foil Hat time: Judith Miller

[tedzbear]

After reading "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson, I have developed a tin foil hat theory as to why Miller is willingly going to jail even though the other reporter has talked:

Ms. Miller is an undercover agent for Rumsfeld's Office of Strategic Influence.
Chalmers Johnson:
This secret agency carries out "what defense planners call 'information warfare'--disinformation and propaganda against foreign enemies AS WELL AS domestic critics who do not support presidential policies.
<snip>
Deception operations include managing (and restricting) public information, controlling news sources, and manipulating public opinion.
<snip>
Typical information-warfare operations range from the trivial to major projects like inventing pretexts for war."

Wouldn't it make sense for Judith to clam up if she were a propaganda agent employed by Rumsfeld or the White House? Rumsfeld and Rove will keep her silent at all costs to prevent the American people from discovering their elaborate deception operations (all in the name of national security).

Any comments???

[okieinpain]

1. that or they got sex pictures.

[electron_blue]

2. I suppose...

not convincing enough, though.

Cooper avoided jail only because Rove gave him permission to talk. Otherwise he'd be in jail like Miller. She doesn't have permission from her source is the simplest explanation.

Her paper, the NYT, has repeatedly slammed the Bush admin so many times in the last 4-5 yrs that if she was an undercover agent for Rumsfeld, she wasn't doing a very good job.

[stopbush]

5. Maybe the NYTs has slammed *, but Miller's frontpage

stories greased the wheels for war.

You don't feign credibility/objectivity following the Faux News cheerleading model. Nope. You take the NYT's route: bury the objective news on the back pages while giving Miller frontpage above-the-fold placement to spread her knowing lies. You might also gussy it up by giving Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert a column, balanced my the mind-reeling ravings of Bill Safire or the sophmoric musings of David Brooks. To top it off, you try to straddle the left-right chasm with the fact-challenged Tom Friedman's "I'll tell the Arabs how to live while I apologise for Israel" drivel.

Yeah, I could believe she's working for Rummy.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Where Better To Plant Such A Story???

Ya think those WMD/Chalabi lies would have gotten as much "credibility" if it had been in the WSJ or Washington Times?

She was planted to use that paper's name (I'm not sure if it was knowingly or not) to spread the lies far and wide under the cover of a "liberal" newspaper.

I don't know if she worked for Rummy or just got caught up in the telephone game that means power and access inside the beltway.

She's definitely still hiding her source. He must be hiding in an undisclosed location and unable to release her from revealing this information. :sarcasm:

[tedzbear]

6. Are you forgetting Miller's role in the run-up to the Iraq war?

All of her stories were in lock-step with the bullshit being peddled by the chimp and his minions. And her primary (admitted) source was Rumsfeld's supreme bullshit peddler, Ahmad Chalabi.

Didn't the NYT issue an apology for her Iraq reports?

[BR_Parkway]

3. hell, that's a pretty easy one to swallow, especially after the number

of other bought off 'journalists'

Could someone do a FOIA to get any records related or copies of checks?

[LibertyorDeath]

4. That's a definite possibility IMO

She certainly pushed extra hard for the invasion of Iraq
She's more like a conduit for Whitehouse propaganda than a legit reporter.

Wear that tin foil with pride. :toast:

[tedzbear]

7. Thanks.

Have I earned the right to wear my "double super-duper secret" tin foil trenchcoat?

[PurityOfEssence]

9. This sounds EXTREMELY possible

She may very well be a much more sophisticated version of a Jeff Gannon. Her pro-Israel slant makes much of the lathered-up warmongering against Saddam seem like a perfect personally-motivated bent, but perhaps there's more: maybe she IS a literal operative.

We certainly KNOW that she was extremely helpful in the run-up to the war, and was Chalabi's mouthpiece. The question is whether she's just a fellow-traveler or full-fledged functionary.

I would imagine that there's a great deal of fear about what she would be compelled to say in front of a grand jury, and the outing of more pure propaganda from this administration would absolutely ruin her. Being caught doing something like this would be real trouble for the administration with everyone but the die-hard reactionaries and their fundy enablers.

[Me.]

10. It's Long Been "Common Knowledge" That

journalists have served as assets for various intelligence agencies, in a myriad of capacities. It has been speculated that Felt was actually Woodward's handler. And there has to be some reason that Judy is sleeping on the floor in a prison cell rather than spilling the beans. After all, she has no principles that I can point to and speak off, the only skin she may be trying to save here is her own.

[applegrove]

11. If Rove & Co. attacked Plame & Wilson in a planned way. It would look

like this on the surface: A will talk to B and get the info on Y out. C will talk to D and get the info on X out. And on and on. But then Judy gets the story and calls her insiders and messes up the isolatedness of the plan. Judy hears from A and then calls C, E & F. And the plan falls apart. So G tells her not to write her story. Or G gives her information that makes her shut down her story. And then the investigation starts. Would not have come out if Judy Miller was not an agent acting on her own and thinking for herself. The lines got crossed and then the plan unravels. She doesn't write a story. Fitzgerald hears her name from A or C or E or F or a few of those. And the investigation then turns on itself and starts to head back towards the WH. And Judy shuts up. But A and C are sticking to their original "reality". And lying about the meeting they all attended together. And it is there. Just waiting for Judy to speak about it. And Cooper is released because he didn't cross lines and knows only about the A calls B and talks about X.

Just a guess I read somewhere. But since we are all guessing. I thought I'd add what others have said so far.