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The Reporter's Last Take
Judy Miller resigned from the New York Times yesterday, after months of criticism -- external and internal -- over her role in the CIA leak.
(Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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For a reporter, that question is devastating in the asking. But to her critics, it is a question long overdue.
Several of Miller's Times colleagues, interviewed before her resignation, expressed bitterness after years of watching her seem to slip-slide away from sanction for questionable behavior, like being too cozy with a particular point of view, being too close to her sources, all of which she denies.
And so Miller's emergence as a pivotal figure in a high government scandal seems, to her critics, a karmic comeuppance. As Miller's role in the CIA leak probe was revealed, a certain schadenfreude took hold in Times newsrooms both in New York and in Washington, which have been seething over the Miller saga.
In a special prosecutor's quest to find the culprit who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Miller, 57, wound up spending 85 days in jail earlier this year rather than name the source who mentioned Plame's identity to her. She served time, she said, because she did not believe her source had sufficiently waived the confidentiality agreement between them.
It was all for the sake of the First Amendment rights of journalists, she says -- which prompted eyes to roll among some of her colleagues at the Times, who believe she really went to jail because she needed to resuscitate her professional image. Miller had been battered by earlier allegations of bias in support of the Bush administration's contention, since discredited, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. (She became so controversial, in fact, that in late 2003 the Times prohibited her from writing about WMD.)
"Anybody who thinks that I would have gone to jail as a career move doesn't know jail, doesn't know me." (But yes, she says, she did keep a jailhouse journal, just in case she decides to do a book.)
After her release from jail, she revealed to a federal grand jury what I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then the vice president's chief of staff, had said to her about Plame in three conversations.
Shortly thereafter, on Oct. 28, Libby resigned after the grand jury indicted him for allegedly lying about several Plame-related conversations he'd had with reporters, including Miller.
Miller says she was hurt by Keller's suggestion that there was an "entanglement" between her and Libby.
"I had no personal, social or other relationship with him except as a source," she told the Times.
Now, Miller could become a witness for the prosecution at Libby's trial, which in a way could put her in the dock, too: as the journalist who became a lightning rod for all manner of criticism of the Bush administration, the war, the conduct of journalism.
Building a Reputation
"It's quite conceivable that some people really don't like me," Miller is saying. "That's okay. I don't like everybody. As Bill Safire said, I'm not Miss Congeniality. . . . I suppose people often feel slighted that I don't spend a lot of time schmoozing around the coffee cart, because if I'm talking to my colleagues, I'm not getting the story."
