Putting Monica Lewinski to Shame

Jim Henley quotes Judith Miller, would-be Saint Joan, on her status as martyr for the free press:

I know that the freest and fairest societies are those with a free press . . . publishing information that the government does not want to reveal.

The problem is, she's made a career regurgitating information that the government did want to reveal. But never mind her prewar actions as a conduit for Chalabi and the Rumsfeld group. In the case in question, the government was attempting to leak information against its political enemies. She's not protecting a leaker against the government--the leaker represented the very highest levels of the government. She is currently engaged in the moral equivalent of covering for an employer that tried to blacklist a whistle-blower; yet she wants to portray herself as Socrates before the Assembly. That dog just won't hunt.

Anyway, as Jim points out, this is the same Judith Miller who wrote the following, not too long ago:

. . . my job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.

This is nothing new. Judith Miller has been a shill for the national security state going back way before the Dumb W. Ass administration. Her kneepads-and-warm-washcloth approach to recycling government war agitprop has been quite consistent, under both Clinton and Bush. (Via Alphonse van Worden) Truthout reproduces a talking head show transcript from 1999, in which Norman Solomon tears her a new one for fellating the Clinton administration during the Balkan war.

And--a definite "howler of the week" candidate--my local "newspaper" editorialized on Sunday that the jailing of Miller was an attempt to turn a journalist into a mouthpiece of the government. Seems to me like she didn't have very far to go.

My only fear is that some honest street prostitute might be forced to share a cell with her.