Naturalized-Texan
08-01-2005, 09:57 AM
Could Judy Miller have been the White House’s source? (http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200508010813.asp)
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Arianna Huffington has a point.
She reports in the July 27 edition of "The Huffington Post" that in the halls of the New York Times, among the colleagues of imprisoned reporter Judy Miller, a theory is being debated. It boils down to this: Perhaps after Joseph Wilson's notorious op-ed appeared in the Times, Judy called a source (or two) in the intelligence community to find out how and why Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium.
Perhaps her source(s) told her that Wilson got the assignment thanks to his wife, Valerie Plame, who works at CIA HQ in Langley.
Now further suppose that Miller is trying to develop this into a larger story on Wilson and the controversy over the Bush administration's arguments for regime change in Iraq. So she calls people in the White House, Karl Rove, maybe, or Dick Cheney deputy Scooter Libby or someone. (Newsday identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 — two days after Wilson's op-ed appeared, with an "unnamed" government official.)
Judy perhaps says: "My sources tell me that Wilson's wife works at the CIA and that she was the one who recommended that he get the Africa assignment. How does that square with Wilson's claim that Cheney sent him to Niger, and that Cheney received his report and ignored it?"
.....................
But Huffington's basic point is perceptive (another sentence I never thought I'd write): Miller may not want to reveal her "source" at the White House "because she was the source....In this scenario Miller wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it."
{More at the link above.}
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Arianna Huffington has a point.
She reports in the July 27 edition of "The Huffington Post" that in the halls of the New York Times, among the colleagues of imprisoned reporter Judy Miller, a theory is being debated. It boils down to this: Perhaps after Joseph Wilson's notorious op-ed appeared in the Times, Judy called a source (or two) in the intelligence community to find out how and why Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium.
Perhaps her source(s) told her that Wilson got the assignment thanks to his wife, Valerie Plame, who works at CIA HQ in Langley.
Now further suppose that Miller is trying to develop this into a larger story on Wilson and the controversy over the Bush administration's arguments for regime change in Iraq. So she calls people in the White House, Karl Rove, maybe, or Dick Cheney deputy Scooter Libby or someone. (Newsday identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 — two days after Wilson's op-ed appeared, with an "unnamed" government official.)
Judy perhaps says: "My sources tell me that Wilson's wife works at the CIA and that she was the one who recommended that he get the Africa assignment. How does that square with Wilson's claim that Cheney sent him to Niger, and that Cheney received his report and ignored it?"
.....................
But Huffington's basic point is perceptive (another sentence I never thought I'd write): Miller may not want to reveal her "source" at the White House "because she was the source....In this scenario Miller wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it."
{More at the link above.}