Is There A Whistleblower At The New York Times?

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I dislike New York Times reporter Judith Miller about as much as one person could dislike another person. I think she is scum. I was actually upset when she was released from jail nine days ago, mostly because she has become a living symbol of the corporatism that allowed this country to needlessly go to war with Iraq. Jail is too good for her, in my opinion.

So when I read a piece like this from Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher, it gives me some hope -- not much, but some -- that Judith Miller may indeed have another jail cell in her future.

The article focuses for the most part on Judith Miller's recently-uncovered "missing" notebook. This notebook is important because it reportedly covers a discussion Miller had with Scooter Libby on June 25, 2003, two weeks before the appearance of Ambassador Joe Wilson's op-ed piece wherein he rightfully accused the Bush Regime of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify the invasion.

Although the fact that a Bush Administration official and Miller were discussing Joe Wilson two weeks prior to the op/ed piece being published is interesting in itself, I find these questions posed by E&P to be far more intriguing:

How did Fitzgerald find out about these notes? Or did he long know they existed but didn’t know where they were or couldn’t get the Times to cough them up? Did someone at the Times, in New York or at the Washington bureau, snitch on Miller? (As E&P has reported for the past year, there is widespread hostility towards Miller, and the paper’s handling of her, among Times personnel in both offices who, accurately, perceive that the reputation of their paper is taking a hard hit.) Or did Miller come forward herself? If she did, was it after someone tipped off Fitzgerald?

I'd love to see Judith Miller get hit with some type of obstruction charge. And I really loved reading this:

A top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney got a push from a prosecutor before telling New York Times reporter Judith Miller that he wanted her to testify in a probe into the outing of a CIA operative whose diplomat husband was an Iraq-war critic.

The prosecutor's encouragement, in a letter obtained by Reuters, has prompted some lawyers in the case to question whether Cheney's aide was acting completely voluntarily when he gave Miller the confidentiality waiver she had insisted on.

The investigation has spotlighted free-press issues and the Bush administration's aggressive efforts to defend its Iraq policy against critics.

Miller maintains she only agreed to testify -- after spending 85 days in jail -- because she received what she describes as a personal and voluntary waiver of confidentiality from her source. She dismissed an earlier waiver by Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, as coerced.

I laughed when I read this, mostly because Miller made a big point last week that she didn't think Scooter's original waiver was all that voluntary. Now it appears that this follow-up waiver was even less voluntary that the first one. That's pretty funny stuff. As Josh Marshall notes:

Her claim that she didn't crack now seems, well ... like a crock. This 'voluntary' doesn't seem any different from the first 'voluntary'. And 'voluntary' has, of course, a withered meaning when it's the prosecutor calling for volunteers.

It seems a lot more like she just got tired of sitting in jail.

Or, some other jeopardy not yet spelled out made her give up the game.

Well, let us hope so.