Thursday, November 10, 2005

Judy Jumps!

New York Times "Plamegate" reporter Judith Miller has resigned under increasing criticism from her own paper. She marks her departure with a letter to the editor in the Times today, her comments far more gracious to her former employers than they were to her.

My, what a difference a few months can make. Just this summer, Miller was the courageous Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail rather than reveal her confidential sources in the Plamegate matter.

Shortly after being released from jail, her own publication turned on her, describing her as a rogue reporter who botched stories on pre-war estimates of Iraq's WMD capabilities and lying to her editors about her conversations with her Plamegate sources.

Mind you, that's the paper's defense -- that it had an out-of-control reporter on its hands. What a lowly state the Times has come to when that's how they explain their behavior. But I guess in the post-Blair period, you go with whatever you can to get off the hook.

Interesting to note that Miller is a 28-year, Pulitizer Prize-winning Times veteran.

So, I guess the question is has she always been out of control, or is this some recent development?

The charge on the WMD estimates appears to be hollow at best -- EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE got them wrong, from Hans Blix at the U.N. to presidential candidate John Kerry -- largely because Saddam purposely lied about what he did and didn't have.

Note that they were only wrong on the amounts however -- the Duelfer report clearly proves that Saddam remained in possession WMD capabilities, resources and materials, with the express purpose of maintaining the capability to reconstitute his programs on a large scale at a time of his choosing.

3 comments:

JBlog said...
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JBlog said...

Yeah, I know -- I just included some of the ones people usually leave out.

Here's some more: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Senator Tom Daschle, France, Germany, Russia.

It's quite a lengthy list, actually.

Important to note that when people charge Bush & Co. with botching the estimates, they conveniently leave the rest of these folks out.

Heck, until the fall of 2002, John Kerry was actually ADVOCATING an invasion of Iraq.

Ramblings said...

Here's a link to the blog that list's some of the WMD's that were found, http://qandablog.typepad.com/questions_and_answers/2005/11/disinformation_.html

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1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
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1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents
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17 chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin gas)
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Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form meant for dispersal over populated areas
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Roadside bombs loaded with mustard and "conventional" sarin gas, assembled in binary chemical projectiles for maximum potency