Judith Miller: "I'm not God."

On her uncritical use of con man Chalabi as the source of her NYTimes "scoops":

""We worked our asses off to get that story," she said. "No one leaked anything to us. I reported what I knew at the time. I wish I were omniscient. I wish I were God and had all the information I had needed. But I'm not God and I don't know. All I can rely on is what people tell me. That's all any investigative reporter can do. And if you find out that it's not true, you go back and write that. You just keep chipping away at an assertion until you find out what stands up."
-snip-
But Miller's entire journalistic approach was flawed. A few months after the aluminum tubes story, a former CIA analyst, who has observed Miller's professional products and relationships for years, explained to me how simple it was to manipulate the correspondent and her newspaper.
"The White House had a perfect deal with Miller," he said. "Chalabi is providing the Bush people with the information they need to support their political objectives with Iraq, and he is supplying the same material to Judy Miller. Chalabi tips her on something and then she goes to the White House, which has already heard the same thing from Chalabi, and she gets it corroborated by some insider she always describes as a 'senior administration official.' She also got the Pentagon to confirm things for her, which made sense, since they were working so closely with Chalabi. Too bad Judy didn't spend a little more time talking to those of us in the intelligence community who had information that contradicted almost everything Chalabi said."
-snip-
Miller's centrifuge story, although the most influential, was not the most egregious of her pieces. A story titled "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert" was based on a source she never met or even interviewed. For that story, Miller watched a man in a baseball cap from a distance, who pointed at the desert floor, and used that as a basis for filing a piece that confirmed the U.S. had discovered "precursors to weapons of mass destruction."
snip-
The fact that Chalabi was able to feed disinformation to America's most widely recognized publication and have it go relatively unchallenged as the electorate was whipped into a get-Saddam frenzy ought to be keeping Times editors awake all night. Nobody wanted a war against Iraq more than Ahmed Chalabi -- and the biggest paper in the U.S. gave it to him almost as willingly as the White House did. The failures of Miller and the Times' reporting on Iraq are far greater sins than those of the paper's disgraced Jayson Blair. While the newspaper's management cast Blair into outer darkness after his deceptions, Miller and other reporters who contributed to sending America into a war have been shielded from full scrutiny.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/index.html
:wtf:
Why has Ahmed Chalbi not been arrested, and why does Judith Miller still have a job? Any takers?

Not only is she not God, she ain't journalist, either~

As for your 2 questions, I'm not willing to touch 'em.

worth reading on even your worst day. Why do I even have a job anymore? Beats the hell out of me. Does the Times suck or what?"

The "man in the baseball cap" story was even worse! I remember at the time a lot of people saying that the story as reported had to have been screwed up at the printer or something, because it made absolutely no sense. Unless, of course, you were of the opinion that Judith Miller was an agitprop plant at the NYT whose job was to spread disinformation. Then it all made perfect sense.

Too bad so many people died because of it, but the Republicans swept to victory in the mid-term elections, so mission accomplished, baby!

She's not God? Who the hell have I been praying to ever night then? </blatant sarcasm>

OK, how about all those people who contradicted your sources at the time? Like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, hmm? Doesn't a real investigative reporter interview several sources, not just one? It was hardly a secret that Chalabi was working for the Pentagon.

"I can only rely on what people who share my agenda tell me!"

"What do you expect people?!!!! You expect me not to write propaganda with unverfied sources to pimp an illegal war?!!! I'm not GOD people!....what's next?!! I'm supposed to NOT participate in insider trading?!! Whaere does it end?!!"

She makes me want to gag.

I don't think the NYT was looking for omniscience. I believe competence was, however, very likely part of the job description.

And what do the NYT and its readers get in Miller's "explanation"? Snottiness.

It's the only explanation.

Amazing how none of these people ever admit mistakes.

Miller, who knew all of this already at the time I interviewed her, remained righteously indignant, unwilling to accept that she had goofed in the grandest of fashions.

"You know what," she offered angrily. "I was proved fucking right. That's what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, 'There she goes again.' But I was proved fucking right."

Okay Judith - when were you "proved right"? Fool.

Damn straight, you know who.

Just had to kick this thread. This ever-unwinding story infuriates me.

or revoke her license to practice "journalism?"

Damn, guess not. Journalists need accountability.

a shill and a whore

I know god and you my dear are no god.

Unfortunately, you are a febble minded fatally flawed excuse for a human being with the blood of over 800 US troops and 10,000 dead Iraqis on your hands. What color would you like for your prison jumpsuit?

Russ Baker, who has written critically of Miller for the Nation, places profound blame at the feet of the reporter and her paper. "I am convinced there would not have been a war without Judy Miller," he said.

I don't know if I'd go that far. I think a gullible populace, right wing talk show hosts, and the Bush administration are also factors.

I think the answer to your question is pretty obvious: the Bush admin does not will that Chalabi and Miller face any repercussions. If it were so; they'd be in Gitmo along with Novak and Libby.

That headline was the lowpoint and signalled to me that the Times had finally confronted Miller and would not let her spin anymore.

The wording of that headline cried of suspicion. I am sure Judy's original headline was far more "certain" of the facts. As it is it was almost parody as finally printed.

In the pecking order, the real one, journalists have neither the education or the credentials to do the really tough stuff.

Journalists like, oh, Greg Palast would be an exception.

Not so with Judy. With her credentials and recent history, most people wouldn't talk to her. She probably had a hard time even getting a job with her "contacts".

I mean some people really don't have it.

Marginal before she started, she has demonstrated no capacity for ability to work or general character.

Sorry, Judy.

You have as much chance of being hired for something serious as Ann Coulter.