The Jailing of Judith

From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot.

The New York Times editorial about Judith Miller seems designed to steamroller the ambiguities of her case with patriotic cant: “She is surrendering her liberty in defense of a greater liberty, granted to a free press by the founding fathers so journalists can work on behalf of the public without fear of regulation or retaliation from any branch of government.”

Meanwhile, Will Bunch, in his Philadelphia Daily News column “Attytood,” attempts to sort out those ambiguities. In Watergate, he says, “a reporter acting like Miller would not be meeting the FBI’s Mark Felt in an underground parking garage. She would be obsessively on the phone with H.R. Haldeman or John Dean, listening to malicious gossip about Carl Bernstein or their plans to make Judge Sirica look bad.”

And: “. . . the special prosecutor wants to know about conversations that Miller had with a person, or persons, who wanted to squash the whistleblowers. He wants to know if Miller, perhaps unwittingly, abetted what would have been a criminal act against the whistleblower and his family. In fact, there’s a theory that Miller might even have been a person who told Bush administration officials that Plame was a CIA agent.”

Hadn’t heard the last one before.

Anyway, don’t cry for her, liberal media, even though, as she said from jail, “They put shackles on my hands and my feet.” The Gray Lady’s black lady should come out of this humanized like Martha Stewart - not to mention book-dealed up the yin-yang.

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