"The Cause" and "Little Miss Run Amok"

The Cause: The New York Times wants a federal shield law for journalists.

Run Amok: They used Judith Miller to try and get it.

“My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson’s wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or “operative”.”

Judy testified before the grand jury AFTER she cut a deal with prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald to “limit his questions to Mr. Libby and the Wilson matter.”

The “deal” is the crux of this entire charade. The bit about the voluntary waiver seems a bunch of baloney.

Without the “deal”, Judy “would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Mr. Wilson or his wife – for articles published in The Times”.

It’s the “other sources” and herself that Judy was protecting -- not Libby -- and she was willing to be the so-called martyr for The New York Times’ “cause”, provided she didn’t have to stay in jail for too long a time.

Judy testified that Libby told her on July 8, 2003 that Wilson’s “wife works at Winpac”.

Judy testified that in her July 12, 2003 Libby interview notes, the words “Victoria Wilson” were written in her notebook: “I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I was not sure whether Mr. Libby had used this name…”.

After Judy’s first grand jury appearance, she “found” another notebook. This one had notes from a June 23, 2003 interview with Scooter Libby. Judy noted: “wife works in bureau?” -- referring to Libby’s first mention of Wilson’s wife. In a different section of the notebook, Judy had written “Valerie Flame”.

Judy was asked to explain the “Valerie Flame” notation: “I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall”.

Maybe she could not recall, maybe not.

Judy IS a real whack job: “Valerie Flame”, “Victoria Wilson”.

The New York Times has rightly been heavily criticized about their participation in, and coverage of this story. But Judy didn’t want to play the martyr anymore. She was “dealt” a get out of jail free card.

From martyr to patsy: “Interviews show that the paper’s leadership, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control.”

Yeah, right.
--LynZee