Bill Keller got punched by Judy Miller, his former reporter. As the executive editor of the New York Times, calling itself the world’s most “influential newspaper”, Keller is seen as the most puddingheaded man going today, thanks to Judy. In his memos, the fellow keeps “wishing” he had done things differently; and said things he shouldn’t have. For a man meant to have his feet firmly on the ground, he comes across as a wobbly, blithering chap, always apologizing for his actions.
For those of you who don’t know the shenanigans of Ms Miller, 57, no problem. You’re not alone. For company you have the illustrious publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr; Scooter Libby, former chief of staff for the vice-president and of course Bill Keller himself. They don’t know the lady either.
Judith Miller is the reporter who wrote that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and since everyone considers Times to be of the word of God, everyone believed Miller. Bush rammed into Iraq using Miller as the launching pad. The sinisterly sly Vice-President Dick Cheney convinced everybody who was important enough to convince in Washington D.C. that Ms Miller knew of something that the rest of America didn’t, so they’d better shut up and show some respect to the diva.
Sometimes journalism is not about being truly professional
The woman with a pageboy cut and a sexy pout had stumbled on to WMD pile. No, wait. She was told about them from a reliable source that had actually seen them. Wasn’t she lucky to be the sole recipient of this scoop, she gloated to her editors? They bought the boast. So badly had the Times publisher Sulzberger Jr wanted his paper to equal the Washington Post’s Watergate record; if the Post could topple President Richard Nixon, the Times could topple President Saddam Hussein.
As the corks flew out of the champagne bottles at the Times, Judith Miller was hailed as the heroine of investigative journalism and a saviour saint of the Iraqis screaming out to be rescued by the Americans against tyrant Saddam.
Bush readied to attack and his secretary of state sharpened his knives to cut anyone down at the UN who dared to question why Iraq needed conquering. General Colin Powell was a much pumped-up man, thanks again to Judy Miller.
Guess what? A year down the road, Judy said her source had lied to her. There were no WMD in Iraq. While a humiliated Times burnt its image by admitting it had made a grave error of judgment, Judy was not humbled, nor punished. Brazenly, she continued reporting on sensitive issues and treated with respect by the paper.
Who was the source that caused the entire ruckus? None other than Ahmad Chalabi. Yes, you guessed it. Bush said he never ever wanted to see him again, because the “sleaze ball” had conned the White House into lying about the WMD.
Hold on. The same “sleaze ball” is now being given a red carpet treatment in Washington, as I write. And Chalabi continues to con the Americans by pulling more rabbits out of his hat. This time around, the Shia leader is selling his secular politics. He says he’s no longer interested in getting the Iranians to help their fellow Shias in Iraq. He’s telling Secretary of State Condi Rice, who now wears higher hemlines and carries a new hairstyle, that he has warned the Iranian president not to interfere in the December 15 national elections in Iraq.
Guess what? The Americans are buying it yet again and are promising to make him the next prime minister of Iraq. And with this Chalabi’s chalaki has come full circle. How?
Well, the only person standing between his dreams of becoming president of Iraq was of course Saddam Hussein. So he charmed Judy Miller of the New York Times (it’s hard for American women to resist the machismo of middle-eastern men dressed in shiny Armani suits?) into writing falsely about the presence of WMD to persuade Bush into attacking Iraq. The rest is history as goes the cliche.
Now to Scooter Libby, the man who worked for Dick Cheney as his evil genius. Libby went the same route as Chalabi in winning Judith Miller. He told her that Valerie Plame, wife of ambassador Joe Wilson, was in effect a CIA agent.
Why did Libby tell Miller? They had a relationship. Was it sexual?
Let’s ask Ms Miller’s editor, Bill Keller. Surely, he knows that his ace reporter never allowed anything to come between grabbing a good story and the don’ts listed for Times reporters while on duty. The “Newspaper of Record” after all had a reputation to live up to.
But guess what? Judy Miller always considered herself above her editors. She intimidated them to the point where none dared chop a line from her story or question her journalistic ethics. She terrorized everybody. And that included Bill Keller, who in his famous memo to the staff last month accused her of being “entangled” and “engaged” with Scooter Libby.
Libby wrote pornography before becoming Cheney’s adviser. Libby’s 1996 novel, The Apprentice, is suddenly in demand and the publishers are reprinting thousands of copies which should be in stores just in time for the gift-giving season. The New Yorker describes Libby’s account of a “caged bear copulating with a 10-year-old girl”.
Guess what? His signed first edition hardcover copies are fetching $745. Last week the prices on Amazon.com had fallen to $394. Americans are bipolar. On one end are the Times readers meant to be sophisticated and urbane, and on the other end of the spectrum are scumbags wanting to read Libby’s trash “littered with edgy sexual material and strong language”.
“Wow, who would have thought that clean living, family values man Scooter Libby was capable of writing such filth,” said one reviewer on Amazon. Another Amazon reviewer noted its “lavish dollops of voyeurism, bestiality, pedophilia and corpse robbery.” One never knows about men and women like Libby and Miller? What their secret fantasies are and how they feed them.
Last month, the Times public editor, who is meant to serve the readers’ interests by maintaining an editorial distance from his employers at the Times blasted Judith Miller, accusing her of taking “journalistic shortcuts”. He also faulted the publisher and editors, saying, “the deferential treatment of Ms Miller by editors who failed to dig into problems before they became a mess ... Neither Mr Keller nor the publisher had done much digging into Ms Miller’s contacts.”
Humiliated by her own paper, Miller had to leave.
While the Times executive editor has taken the flak by Miller and will continue to be jeered by a woman scorned, the real role of the publisher and his personal relationship with Judy Miller will never come to light. She literally got away with murder because the publisher let her and none dare protest at the Times. Why?
“The apparent deference to Ms Miller by Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the publisher, going back several years, needs to be addressed more openly, especially in view of the ethics issues that have come to light,” writes the Public Editor, Byron Calame.
Judy wrote of her publisher: “He galvanized the editors, the senior editorial staff. He metaphorically and literally put his arm around me.” How does one describe this relationship? Let’s ask Bill Keller. He should know. Or maybe he doesn’t. n
Bill Keller got punched by Judy Miller, his former reporter. As the executive editor of the New York Times, calling itself the world’s most “influential newspaper”, Keller is seen as the most puddingheaded man going today, thanks to Judy. In his memos, the fellow keeps “wishing” he had done things differently; and said things he shouldn’t have. For a man meant to have his feet firmly on the ground, he comes across as a wobbly, blithering chap, always apologizing for his actions.
The woman with a pageboy cut and a sexy pout had stumbled on to WMD pile. No, wait. She was told about them from a reliable source that had actually seen them. Wasn’t she lucky to be the sole recipient of this scoop, she gloated to her editors? They bought the boast. So badly had the Times publisher Sulzberger Jr wanted his paper to equal the Washington Post’s Watergate record; if the Post could topple President Richard Nixon, the Times could topple President Saddam Hussein.
