Judith Miller Finds It's 'Hard to Keep Doing Your Job'

[seemslikeadream]

By Joe Strupp

Published: November 30, 2004 4:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter, one of several journalists facing jail time for refusing to reveal who leaked the identify of a CIA operative last year, says she is "in a state of denial" about the prospect of going off to jail as a crucial contempt of court appeal approaches in a week.

She also says she can only get a fraction of planned work done because of the ongoing meetings, interviews, and legal planning for her defense. "There is a list of about 20 things I had hoped to do by the end of the year and I will be lucky to get one or two done," she told E & P on Tuesday.

"It is hard to keep doing your job, which is part of the suppressive effect of these cases," Miller added. "I am supposed to be covering the oil-for-food (scandal) and it is very hard to plan a trip or make calls."

Miller will discuss the CIA identity leak of Valerie Plame, and the related U.S. Justice Department subpoenas, on the Charlie Rose show tonight with attorney Floyd Abrams and Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

"I really don't think people understand that, whether or not you win, these cases certainly tie up reporters and reporting time and it is expensive," she told E & P. "For less well-endowed institutions, it is prohibitively costly. That in and of itself makes it tougher for editors to say, 'let's go after that story that is likely to get us sued'."
more
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000728420

[imenja]

1. Why hasn't the Times fired her?

She was the biggest proponent of the war they had, and most of her reporting ended up being wrong.

[Laughing Mirror]

8. And that's what she ought to be going to jail for

For her complicity in telling the lies of the conspiracy to go to war, and not for a journalist's refusal to reveal confidential sources.

[grumpy old fart]

27. What's with all the venom?

Look, she acted just like the rest of MSM in the run up to the war, but geez, she is now standing up to Rove and the boys on a rather important principle. One would think we should be backing her in protecting the fourth estate, which may be in rather pathetic shape but is still a cornerstone of our freedoms.

[Laughing Mirror]

31. I am a non-poisonous snake with no venom in my fangs

And I agree with you. Prosecute Miller along with the rest of her war criminal buddies, not for being a journalist with principles, but for NOT being one.

[denverbill]

36. She's not 'standing up to Rove'. She's protecting him.

Or at minimum, she's protecting the Bush administration.

She knows the name of the traitor who leaked Valerie Plame's name, and she is refusing to divulge it. Protecting a powerful government official from prosecution is hardly why journalists need the ability to protect their sources identity. It's quite the opposite.

[grumpy old fart]

38. This investigation is a fraud....

see my posts below. The only mission of this "investigation" is to further undermine an already cowed media. The fact that they have laid off of Novak is proof enough.

[bobbyboucher]

41. That is completely without merit.

You do not know the inside goings on with regard to this case and it is suspiciously premature to make such a claim.

[Voltaire99]

39. Too late for her to "stand up to Rove and the boys"

Look, she acted just like the rest of MSM in the run up to the war, but geez, she is now standing up to Rove and the boys on a rather important principle. One would think we should be backing her in protecting the fourth estate, which may be in rather pathetic shape but is still a cornerstone of our freedoms.

Her shilling for Rove and the boys helped manufacture consent for war. She cannot now stand up to them, too, after delivering their glory.

More critically, she is continuing to help Rove and the boys by protecting Plame's leaker. Might it not be one of them, in fact? And might that rotten gang not be counting upon precisely this back-to-the-wall stand on principle to further protect them? They would know that Miller, no fool, along with the much-scandalized Times, will attempt a resurrection of her career by martyrdom.

(And about that cornerstone: is that where Jimmy Hoffa's buried?!)

[sendero]

43. She protecting nothing..

... but herself. And there are LEGAL and WELL UNDERSTOOD LIMITS to the confidentialty rule.

This is a TREASON investigation, not some he-said she-said bullshit.

[UpInArms]

2. thanks for the morning laugh, seemslikeadream!

Gack! What "job" does Judith PNACer Miller actually do?

Har-Har-Har!

He-He-He!

Ho-Ho-Ho! That's it! Ho-Ho-Ho!

[seemslikeadream]

4. You are very welcome

I enjoyed it too!

[seemslikeadream]

3. In Leak Case, Reporters Lack Shield For Sources

And that persuaded five members of the Supreme Court when it ruled in 1972, in Branzburg v. Hayes, that the First Amendment does not protect journalists from being subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.

Justice Byron R. White wrote that there was "no basis for holding that the public interest in law enforcement and in ensuring effective grand jury proceedings is insufficient to override the consequential, but uncertain, burden on news gathering that is said to result from insisting that reporters, like other citizens, respond to relevant questions put to them in the course of a valid grand jury investigation or criminal trial."

There is no federal "shield law," though Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has proposed one since the Miller and Cooper cases.

Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court in Washington cited Branzburg in ordering Cooper and Miller to testify.

After Branzburg, the Justice Department promised, in effect, not to abuse its power to subpoena reporters. Department guidelines instruct federal prosecutors to seek only the minimum of reporters' testimony essential to resolve a case, when all other alternatives have been exhausted.

more
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_14049.shtml

[imenja]

12. one thing I have wondered . . .

Since most of these reporters--besides Novak--never wrote the story about V Plame, why are they still determined to protect sources. Is it really a source if the reporter neither solicits nor writes the story?

[LynnTheDem]

5. It's hard work. Very hard. Making shit up for bush is very hard work.

Stupid bitch.

Ahhh yes the ol Oil for Food scandal...

Gee, who was it that said there WAS any scandal?

Who was it that says he has the documents proving this "scandal" yet to date has refused to allow ANYONE to see said documents?

Why LOOK! It's Miller's good pal AHMED CHALABI!

[Ganja Ninja]

6. Gee Judith sorry to inconvenience your treasonous ass.

"I really don't think people understand that, whether or not you win, these cases certainly tie up reporters and reporting time and it is expensive," It's tough trying to cover up for the Rove gang.

[girl gone mad]

7. Cry us a river, Judy.

A lot of American Soldiers and innocent Iraqis are finding it hard to do their jobs, too, having suffered loss of limb or life, thanks in small part to Ms. Miller's lies.

[jpgray]

9. How would she know? She's never done it properly in the first place (nt)

[Sideways]

10. I Really Really Really Want To Punch Her Out

Really. Badly.

[NNN0LHI]

14. Get in line n/t

[calimary]

34. Take a number.

What a toady. She brings a blight onto the formerly good name (well, fair-to-middling. Well, actually more like marginal) of credible reporters everywhere. Which we USED to have pretty much everywhere, too. Before they all bought their presidential kneepads, that is.

A total disgrace, that Judith Miller. Why doesn't she crawl back into bed with Ahmed Chalabi and be done with it? He could probably spirit her out of the country somewhere. He evidently has numerous rocks to climb under.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Novak may have invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incriminatio

" Fitzgerald is continuing to ask questions that suggest he is still trying to assess the accuracy of some of the more serious allegations about administration leaks to reporters other than Novak, according to people involved in the case. Prosecutors have questioned numerous witnesses, some of them repeatedly, to learn whether two senior White House aides actively peddled Plame's identity to more than half a dozen reporters before Novak revealed it in print -- an allegation made by an anonymous administration official in a Sept. 28, 2003, Washington Post article."

Charles Lane writes in today's Washington Post: "Two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of the New York Times -- neither of whom had anything to do with the leak to Novak -- now face as much as 18 months in jail for refusing a court order to testify about their contacts with confidential sources related to the Plame story. . . .

"heir cases demonstrate an uncomfortable fact of life for Washington reporters: The symbiotic relationship between journalists and confidential sources enjoys less protection under federal law than it does in most states."

Lane also puts forth an interesting theory regarding Novak's mysterious role in the investigation.

"One intriguing possibility, noted by several lawyers familiar with the case, is that Novak may have invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and that Fitzgerald has not yet chosen to give him immunity from prosecution to compel his testimony."
more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19837-2004Nov29.html

[The Zanti Regent]

13. Judith Miller, YOU killed my only child!

YOU LIED ANY LIE TO SEND MY CHILD TO WAR!

YOU PUT HIM IN THE VA CEMETERY!

If I had my way, I would lock you up for the rest of your life. I hope you rot in jail for a long long time and never get out. As for that worthless piece of shit you write for, Ann Coulter was right. Bin Laden should have crashed the plane into the Screw York Times building!

You and your Nazi apologist pals cut my heart out. The pain NEVER goes away.

I hope you rot in hell!

[seemslikeadream]

21. Yes Judith Miller you killed my good friend's son also

Rose is a friend of mine. Her son is 1st Lt.Brian Slavenas and he was buried on November 13, 2003

Army 1st Lt. Brian D. Slavenas

30, of Genoa, Ill.; assigned to F Company, 106th Aviation Battalion, Army National Guard, Peoria, Ill.; killed Nov. 2 in an attack on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter near Fallujah, Iraq.

At 6-foot-5, 1st Lt. Brian Slavenas stood out in a crowd, even though blending in was more comfortable. And Ronald Slavenas says his son probably wouldn't have been crazy about the word "hero" being used to describe his death. "He would say, 'No big deal.' He wouldn't want any kind of adulation," the father said. Brian Slavenas, 30, was the pilot of a Chinook helicopter shot down Nov. 2. Friends and family in Genoa, Ill., described Slavenas as a "gentle giant," a nonviolent man who felt a duty to his country. "He wasn't one of those gung-ho, want-to-go-to-war-type guys. He was there to do a job," said his brother, Eric Slavenas, who served in Grenada with the Army. Like his paratrooper father and two older brothers, Slavenas followed a path to the military. The Lithuanian-born Ronald Slavenas, who immigrated to the United States in his teens after fleeing to West Germany as a boy, instilled in his sons a sense of commitment to the country that had taken in his family. "I thought as an immigrant when you come to this country, you put your shoulder to the wheel," he said. Brian Slavenas's high school yearbook lists activities as varied as marching band, National Honor Society, chess club, intramural basketball and track. After high school, he became an Army paratrooper, then joined the National Guard, then went to officer school and decided to become a helicopter pilot. He earned an engineering degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

— Associated Press


http://www.militarycity.com/valor/256870.html

[Cheswick2.0]

49. ZR... I didn't know

I am so sorry to read about your son.

[NVMojo]

50. I am crying too ....all of these pieces of excrement MSM whores

need to pay for their actions ...

I am sorry for your loss. I can't tell you how hard I've tried to find some way to stop this from the minute I knew they were salivating for war/invasion....all I could think of was all the honest soldiers who would be in harms way for greed.

This asshole Miller has no conscience but to feel sorry for her own self.

[slor]

15. I feel for sorry for her...

and all that "hard work" she is doing. Why, when you you really think about it, it is much harder than fighting and dying in an illegal war is, as those lazy soldiers and Iraqi civilians are doing!

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. I'm very glad she's all tied up dealing with her legal problems

Otherwise we probably would have invaded Syria or Iran by now if she had her way and if it served her neocon interests.

I'd love to see her to do list:

1. Report stories supporting the invasion of Iran
2. Report stories supporting the invasion of Syria
3. Report stories about the Food for Oil scandal in order to bring down the UN.
4. Shred all the evidence, memos and docs that might damage Chalabi
5. Shred all the evidence, memos and docs from pals in the Likud party
6......

[wabeewoman]

32. Good point

I wondered what was slowing down the invasion of Iran although I see the number of news stories about administration comments on Iran are increasing. I have NO sympathy for Judith Miller. What goes around comes around.....

[ET Awful]

17. What I want to know is why hasn't Novakula been given the same

treatment.

[jpgray]

18. He held up a card that said "fif", probably (nt)

[bunny planet]

40. he's got the 'get out of jail free' card.

[Chalco]

19. What I find fascinating

is that the Bush/Cheney traitor who gave up Plame's name is going to let the journalists go to prison rather than admit having committed a crime and doing time.

[TexasBushwhacker]

That's because one of them is probably Karl Rove

Remember, we're talking about "two TOP White House officials" that gave up Plame. Journalists are pawns to them. They don't give a shit if Novak and however many others go to prison. That's why I don't understand why these journalists don't start talking, unless they feel their lives are in jeopardy.

[NVMojo]

51. sociopaths ....

no shred of decent conscience...

[Champion Jack]

20. I hope she gets a real "special" cell mate

[DinahMoeHum]

26. Preferably Bob Novak.

:evilfrown:

[grumpy old fart]

29. But Novak remains untouched....

shouldn't that tell us all something about this "investigation"????

[AusTexDem]

22. whats so hard about taking dictation.

[hadrons]

23. wasn't Rove's staff writing her stuff anyway???

what a piece of dog shit

[peekaloo]

24. twist in the wind

now that Rove and Cheney have removed her from their speed-dial list.

:cry:

[Rose Siding]

25. It's hard

Everyone knows it's real hard. Just ask the Chimperor.

[grumpy old fart]

28. Help me here...

I understand that we feel Ms. Miller has acted as a mouthpiece for the chimp house, but does anyone really think that this is an "independent" investigation seeking to get at the "truth"? The only folks targeted in this faux inquiry are reporters for overall "enemy" newspapers. Anyone noticed that the true chimp hack, Novak, who actually wrote the damn article which is the supposed subject of this "investigation" has gone scot free?

[Voltaire99]

42. As requested

No, certainly this is more smoke and mirrors. This government has no more ability to investigate its misdeeds than Britney Spears has for instrospection.

Equally I suspect its motives in pressurizing the remnants of the free press for even their quite feeble efforts. Novak, as a butler in good standing, will come to no harm from this administration.

But that is all aside from the quite proper and necessary villification of our dear Judy Miller, who, arguably, is worse than a dozen Novaks.

[grumpy old fart]

54. Thank you...agreed n/t

[sattahipdeep]

30. Christopher Ketcham

UNWELCOME TO THE MACHINE
Exactly how corrupt and vindictive is the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office?
Just ask retired judge John Phillips, if you can find him.

http://www.nypress.com/17/47/news&columns/feature.cfm

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

46. Whistle-Blower Crackdown Spreads

The language is to be patterned on a similar statement distributed last year to White House officials and others in the investigation headed by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney in Chicago, to determine who leaked the identify of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak. Like the upcoming Hatfill waiver, the so-called “Plame waiver” was designed to be an end run around journalists’ claims that they are protecting the confidentiality of sources when they refuse to testify in leak investigations. The statement asserts that a government official who talked to the news media waives “any promise of confidentiality, express or implied” that was offered to them by a reporter, according to a copy of the Plame waiver obtained by NEWSWEEK.

It further authorizes any reporter with whom the official talked to disclose to investigators “any communications that I may have had … regarding the subject matters under investigation, including any communications made ‘on background,’ ‘off the record,’ ‘not for attribution,’ or in any other form.”
more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6630166/site/newsweek/

:hi:

[Pithy Cherub]

33. May Judy live in interesting times...

and Judeath should also be made to be the recipient of the same type of reporting and after effect she subjected on the world!

[IndianaGreen]

35. She should be sharing a cell with Martha Steward

Miller is no journalist! She is a quack that peddled the WMDs lie using Chalabi as her source.

[Massachusetts]

37. "Miller is no journalist"

she is nothing more than a low life propagandist.:puke: :puke: :puke:

[Cookie wookie]

44. Everyone pretty much covered my feelings

When these "propaganda stylists" start trying to make this into an issue about journalists protecting their sources, that just makes them all the more disgusting and hideous. They are traitors who have aided and abetted the enemy in undermining our democratic freedoms. They are not journalists!

Protecting a traitor who leaks the name of a CIA operative, damages not only our ability to protect our country and the world from terrorists, but also threatens lives.

If there were any rule of law left in this country, which there is precious little thanks to the likes of Miller and her cohorts, this slimy snake would be behind bars for the rest of her unnatural life, along with all the rest of her fake journalist buddies.

[marylanddem]

45. Plame issue aside, why hasn't she been fired?

Miller's sickening coziness with Chalabi & Pentagon neocons - evidently with the doting approval of her editors - are the lowest form of propagandistic journalism, resulting in the horrific & tragic consequences of those months of pro-war bullshit. She is an embarrassment to credible print journalists - and I do believe there are some, though fewer & fewer - and I assume her long career is built on perfecting the art of ass-kissing and "access" to the opinions of *'s a-holes. And, sad to say, her plastic "good looks."

[Chomskyite]

47. My comment

She's a difficult personality to feel any sympathy for, since she certainly bears a share of the blame for the Iraqi invasion and the deaths ensuing. But I think DUers should always be absolutists on the right of reporters to protect sources.

The free speech tie-in is obvious, but think about this: if sources in the future fear they'll be revealed, then all hope of us learning what the Bush junta is really doing will be gone.

[w4rma]

48. Treasonous witch. Sources are protected FROM the government, not FOR

the government. Journalists are supposed to protect their sources FROM corrupt entities within the government, not protect treasonous individuals within the government who are doing their treason FOR the government. Repukes twist *everything* around for their own selfish benefit.

I bet she has been promised quite a bit in return, under the table, for this. I'd bet a few years down the road Richard Melon Scafe or some other ultra-wealthy right-wing billionare will pay her well, with maybe a job *wink, wink* where she gets paid *alot* and where she has to do very very little.

[yorkiemommie1]

52. yeah, it's hard work...

it's hard work...

sounds like her lord and master.

[leesa]

53. My heart bleeds for her. Why isn't Novak in jail?