Judith Miller affair reveals lack of integrity in the Bush administration

[NNN0LHI]

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005d/111105/111105s.php

Sinking under the weight of lies

When special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted vice presidential assistant Lewis “Scooter” Libby on five counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice and resolved to keep working on Karl Rove, we knew that this could be the beginning of the end of the Bush administration -- at least as we know it.

What began as an attempt to punish ambassador Joseph Wilson for his report that, contrary to the president’s State of the Union Address, Saddam Hussein had not obtained uranium from Niger, has led to an examination of how Bush misled America into an unnecessary war and to the death that week of the 2,000th American soldier in Iraq.

This case is extremely important because it concerns the integrity of both the White House and the press, particularly The New York Times. The Times is our most thorough medium of information. The other media, especially TV news, take their headlines from the Times. If the Times doesn’t live up to its standards, the whole country suffers.

Consider the Vietnam/Watergate analogy. President Nixon sent the burglars to Daniel Ellsberg’s home because his leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed that the administration had lied to the people about the Vietnam War. Nixon’s cover-up led to his resignation. When Mr. Wilson told reporters Bush was wrong on uranium sales to Iraq, Lewis Libby and Karl Rove spread gossip about Mr. Wilson’s wife Valerie -- “Did you know she’s CIA?”-- to discredit him. Unless Mr. Libby pleads guilty, we will see a two-year trial where Vice President Dick Cheney and a string of reporters -- NBC’s Tim Russert, The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, TIME’s Matt Cooper, columnist Robert Novak and the Times’ Judith Miller will testify. The trial about “little” lies will become one about the big lies that led to the war.

Crisis for the Times

[Kahuna]

1. Show a lack of integrity on her part too. She KNEW they where..

using her articles as propaganda. Never said a word.

[opihimoimoi]

2. What money and ego can do to wreck Integrity....Oh Well...