Judith Miller had this to say before being shackled and taken to a D.C.-area federal prison this evening:
The freest and fairest societies are not only those with independent judiciaries, but those with an independent press that works every day to keep government accountable by publishing what the government might not want the public to know.
Well, right. But that is exactly what DIDN’T happen here, right? Here, "the government" – or more precisely some sleazeball inside it – shopped the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent around to a bunch of journalists as payback for her husband’s critical op-ed regarding Nigerian yellow cake, and douchebag of liberty Bob Novak finally went for it. This is not some whistleblower telling government secrets for the good of the public. This leak had no news value, no public interest value, nothing (as D.C. Circuit Judge Tatel wrote, "the leaked information – Plame’s covert status – lacked significant news value"). The only point of revealing it was to harm an individual whose job was to try to protect this country from terrorists. If Judith Miller received this information from someone in the White House, she was being played like a fiddle. If, as some conspiracy theorists have started suggesting, she actually provided this information to Karl Rove or someone else, she is much worse. Either way, her going to prison isn’t standing up for any principle that seems worth defending.
Hee hee. Nice vitriol.Even if she didn’t commit a crime by providing secret information to anyone, Judith is still a bit of a fool for going to the mat on the facts of this case.For example: even a reporter’s unconditional grant of confidentiality to a source has to be conditioned. Has to be. What if your secret source on the governor’s bribery scandal turns out to be attempting to assassinate someone, and publishes an anonymous letter to that effect? If you the reporter stay silent, are you merely passively allowing the commission of a violent felony? Or are you aiding and abetting the crime yourself, helping commit the murder by gross indifference to human life?So, if I were a reporter, I’d have a simple rule, similar to the lawyer-rule: Don’t burn me, and I promise not to burn you. Lie to me, the implicit promise goes, and you’re toast. Tell me falsehoods, try to play me, use me for your own purposes, don’t play on the level, deal behind my back, and your information’s confidentiality is deemed waived – and hey, now it’s newsworthy! “White House political aide attempts to commit federal crime, lies to journalist” is a swell headline. Too bad Judith never wrote it, nor did the “douchebag of liberty” – nice phrase, that.