Froomkin asks the question: "So what was Miller doing in jail?"

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/30/BL2005093000669.html



Miller's Big Secret

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?

The man she was protecting, it turns out, was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Cheney -- sometimes called "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" on account of his considerable influence in the White House.

Over the course of the investigation, Libby had freed several other reporters from any obligation to keep their conversations with him secret -- and his lawyer had apparently told Miller's lawyer more than a year ago that she was free to talk, as well.

So what was Miller doing in jail? Was it all just a misunderstanding? The most charitable explanation for Miller is that she somehow concluded that Libby wanted her to keep quiet, even while he was publicly -- and privately -- saying otherwise. The least charitable explanation is that going to jail was Miller's way of transforming herself from a journalistic outcast (based on her gullible pre-war reporting) into a much-celebrated hero of press freedom.

Was Miller just trying to make herself into a martyr?

[Greeby]

1. If she wants to be a martyr...

Lets keep her in jail as long as Nelson Mandela :evilgrin:

[bee]

2. Was Miller just trying to make herself into a martyr?

I believe so. Fitz probably threatened her with contempt or obstruction charges... so now shes just testifying to cover her own ass. What a spectacle. :eyes:

[Spazito]

3. I think she was waiting for her 'talking points' from Bolton which

she received when he visited her. Bolton's visit, imo, is key to this somehow.

[Demoiselle]

5. Can prisoners have private conversations with visitors?

I thought there was always a guard within earshot and a tap on the phone. Certainly a prisoner in Miller's situation (future testifier) would be monitored especially well. Or have I just watched too many movies?

[Spazito]

6. It's a good question I don't have an answer to

One can hope that is the case but, even if it were, unless Bolton is a target and pertinent to the case, I wonder if her conversation with him would be allowable evidence. The one thing I DO know is that there is much more going on than just Miller's 'source' specific to Libby.

It seems to me Fitz is building his case like one builds a very intricate jigsaw puzzle and Miller held a key piece. I agree with other posters that Miller caved because she was threatened with further jail time. All this 'holding to my principles' crap from her is just that, CRAP, imo.

[gratuitous]

4. Was Miller trying to rehabilitate her image? Absolutely

There are many deep currents at play here, but yes, Judith Miller needs to burnish her image and pile up whatever sympathy points she can, because she has much to answer for in her credulous reportage regarding Iraq, her chumminess with Ahmad Chalabi, her cynical manipulation of events, and her direct interference with military operations.

Her employer, The New York Times, has to know what a fraud Miller is, and to avoid yet another embarrassment, is backing and filling furiously, trying to portray Miller as some kind of martyr saint for vaguely defined journalistic principles and ethics which have never heretofore worked a significant impairment on Miller's career.

This sordid little chapter in American journalism is every bit as shoddy and shameful as Jeff Gerth and his Whitewater reporting in the early 1990s, and the Times' unwarranted pillorying of Wen Ho Lee.