Betsy's Page
Even Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post is mystified by Judith Miller's stay in jail and whom she is purported to be protecting.
Can it be? That after all that, New York Times reporter
Judith Miller sat in jail for 12 weeks to protect the
confidentiality of a very senior White House aide -- even
though the aide repeatedly made it clear he didn't want
protecting?
That somehow Miller was more intent on keeping their
conversations secret than the aide was?
Something just doesn't jive with her story. And isn't it strange that the New York Times is celebrating the refusal to give information to the public? Isn't information what the media thrives on? Froomkin is puzzled.
Note to reporters: There is nothing intrinsically noble
about keeping your sources' secrets. Your job, in fact,
is to expose them. And if a very senior government
official, after telling you something in confidence, then
tells you that you don't have to keep it secret anymore,
the proper response is "Hooray, now I can tell the
world" -- not "Sorry, that's not good enough for me, I
need that in triplicate." And if you're going to go to
jail invoking important, time-honored journalistic
principles, make sure those principles really apply.
If you haven't already, check out the post at Powerline on all this Miller mystery (linked below).
John Hinderaker has more at the Weekly Standard speculating as to why Miller would spend three months in prison to protect a source who had already signed a waiver and then give up when that same source signed another waiver, except that she stayed in prison 10 days after Libby signed that waiver in order to negotiate with the special counsel. What was so important about those negotiations with the special counsel? Hinderaker has some thoughts (linked below).
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