Gawker: judith+miller

Iraq War Turns Six

Pareene — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:28:56 EDT

Happy Sixth Anniversary of the War in Iraq! Sort of! The war began on March 20, 2003, Baghdad time, so we're totally not late. Let's look back at the lies!

On March 8, George W. Bush told America "we are doing everything we can to avoid War in Iraq." Hah, the CIA's "special activities division" was already in Iraq, along with a couple Special Ops dudes, destabilizing things and generally "warring." That VERY SAME DAY Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion reconstruction contract. But hey, that bald-faced lie was actually one of the more harmless deceptions of that magical first Bush term. The next day, Condi Rice, the dead-ender Bushite whom lots of otherwise reasonable people still "like," went on Face the Nation and cited faulty intelligence gleaned through torture that the C.I.A. already had doubts about.

Hey, let's all go back in time with this remarkable Washington Post story from the day before the war. It is about how Bush lied, all the time, about everything, and everyone who paid attention knew it. It ran on page A13! Page one of every major newspaper was for reprinting those lies and adding some new ones, of course. It was a golden era of journalism.

There are still a lot of people still taken semi-seriously who should be frog-marched out of public service, journalism, and/or commentary for either believing or pretending to believe the obvious bullshit of those terrible years. But, you know, Kissinger still attends journalists' parties and Peter Beinart is "a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations" and basically there is still nothing you can really do to be kicked out of the foreign policy "establishment" once you're in, in this country. Kinda like finance!

So happy birthday quagmire! Don't forget to Tweet about it!

Lie by Lie: The Mother Jones Iraq War Timeline (8/1/90 - 2/14/08) [Mother Jones]

Judy Miller, Movie Hero

Hamilton Nolan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:02:13 EST

Attention Americans, it's almost time to travel to your local movie theater to take in Nothing But the Truth, the ironically-titled Hollywood dramatization of the Judy Miller story! Miller, the former NYT correspondent (now with Fox!) who went to jail unnecessarily to protect Scooter Libby's right to plant fake stories with her concerning nonexistent Iraqi WMDs, is reportedly pleased with the film because it captures the "moral ambiguity" of her situation. It did so by casting Kate Beckinsale as (the much older) Miller, then "dramatizing" the story in order to make her a heroic, martyred "devoted mother of a seven-year-old" who "faces starker physical and personal consequences in jail." So, just how Judith Miller sees herself! Click through to watch two clips, exclusively featuring people who are far too attractive to be journalists:

[WWD]

Hero Journo Joins Fox!

Pareene — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:01:24 EDT

Hooray for Judith Miller! After years in the wilderness, she's finally come home. The former star New York Times national security correspondent is heading to Fox News as an on-air analyst and general sad embarrassment. Miller became famous when she went to jail in a grandstanding stunt because she refused to admit that her secret source was Scooter Libby even though Libby had signed a waiver authorizing her to testify about their conversations and then there was some poetry exchanged and eventually she quit the Times in disgrace and they wrote a caged Editors Note about how she lied, incessantly, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, which was sold to Americans using bullshit planted in her articles by people from the office of the Vice President and then cited by Vice President Cheney. In other words, no one likes her. So now she's going to be on Fox in their new glorious Democrats-are-in-charge-again rebirth as the loyal opposition to the terrorists who will run the country in 2009. They are sooo lucky to have her!

Since she left the Times she's been with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think thank, because she's given up entirely on getting anyone to like her or take her seriously anymore. Also she endorsed Barack Obama because why not? She probably believes in abortion and socialism and progressive taxation just as much as she believed that Iraq was a dangerous threat based on the most specious and misleading of evidence. For a while all the "serious" media liberals had to acknowledge that Bush was more "serious" about National Security than those peacenik hippie Nation-reading commies, remember? No, no one remembers, or cares, whatever.

Miller is of course either delusional or just doesn't give a shit:

However, going to Fox only reinforces the idea among left-wing critics that she’s been on the side of the Bush Administration. Miller contends that she’s a “political independent,” and said Fox wasn’t looking for any ideological perspective on national security.

“They didn’t ask me what I was going to say, or whether I was going to fit a mold,” Miller said. “I think they want me to be independent, and that’s what I am."

Yes, Judy, of course, they hired a disgraced national security correspondent because of her wonderful reputation for being right all the time, not because she was a neo-conservative cheerleader.

Feel free to email Judy all your good wishes!

Montauk Monster In Secret Mutant Army?

Ryan Tate — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:15:31 EDT

Ken Layne over at Wonkette has done some heroic digging into Plum Island, the Department of Homeland Security-run animal horror lab suspiciously close not only to Montauk, where our friend Monty washed ashore, but to a long string of terrifying outbreaks and hybrid animal attacks. We knew from the start of the Montauk Monster mystery that Plum Island was at the center of various conspiracy theories, but when one looks at the entire awful history in one blog post, one must inevitably conclude that, despite its shifty and inconsistent denials, the federal government is assembling there a fearsome monster army that, if left unchecked, will someday slaughter us while we sleep.

Plum Island studies the deadliest sorts of animal viruses, and kept spilling its stash of foot-and-mouth disease for decades until it finally contaminated a neighboring farm in 1978 (it only admitted this recently). Whoops. But also the lab maybe invented Lyme disease, possibly with captured Nazi scientists, which is why the virus first showed up in 1975 in Lyme, Connecticut right across the water.

Also, remember how West Nile Virus suddenly entered North America in 1999 via areas immediately surrounding Plum Island? Yeah.

In 1999, the lab really wanted permission to mess around with human-compatible diseases. So it had Judy Miller write one of her "OMG we're all going to die from scary clouds if we don't do this thing" articles in the Times. But no one wanted to perish in an anthrax mist created by incompetent government scientists so instead the lab gave up.

And perhaps decided to specialize in weaponizable mutants!

Think about it: First the Dover Demon was spotted within 150 miles of the lab in the late 1970s. Then, the Department of Homeland Security privatized the island's guards, making monster "escapes" even easier. In 2006, a stronger, faster, more furry hybrid made it all the way to Maine, where it feasted voraciously on pets until hit by a car and photographed by AP. Now the Montauk Monster has washed ashore close to the island, and the lab can't get its story straight, except to say they had nothing to do with it. But really, if you're building a secret evil monster army, and just lost one of your experimental "marines," what else are you going to say?

Hollywood already knows all this, which is why an effects studio has already started mocking up replicas of the Montauk creatures for the inevitable Oliver Stone expose:

(You can buy this on eBay, by the way.)

Read the blog post (below) that will convince you to finally purchase a large shotgun. Or maybe you'd rather die??

[Wonkette]

Judith Miller Re-Enlists

Ryan Tate — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:11:46 EDT

In perfect sync with some apparently genuine positive news out of Iraq, Judith Miller is yet again delivering spoonfed reports on America's glorious strategy there, just as she did before she was disgraced at the Times. It seems we are finally being greeted as liberators — within the massive prison camps we have constructed. Miller, now employed by the neocons at the Manhattan Institute, reports in Reader's Digest that Iraq's "Camp Bucca" has been transformed from a riot zone into a super-empowering bakery, gym and mini-University, except for the 20 percent of prisoners sent to some sort of inner prison too terrifying to detail:

...thousands of once illiterate detainees have learned how to read and write. Hundreds more are now studying math, science, geography, civics, Arabic, and English and learning carpentry, bricklaying, and other skills that may enable them to feed their families after their release. They play soccer and Ping-Pong, visit their families, pray, and debate how to accurately interpret the Koran they can now read for themselves.

...after monitoring and assessing the detainees, his team began separating the hard-core Al Qaeda and other militants from the 80 percent or more who had joined the insurgency simply to feed their families or because they had been threatened into cooperating.

The story is built around quotes from the major-general in charge of the prison, his friend/subordinate, a military flack and the major-general's superior officer. Arthur Sulzberger must be so proud of how Miller has bounced back!

[Reader's Digest via Huffington Post]

Colbert Welcomes Back Fave Writers Tiki Barber, Judy Miller

Pareene — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:59:47 EST

The writers strike ended! Stephen Colbert was so excited, he introduced his entire writing staff at the top of the show, inviting them on-stage and high-fiving each one. Tiki Barber, Mr. Met, Kevin Bacon, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and disgraced former Times star Judith Miller all ended up in the lineup too. We're just glad Judy's keeping busy!

CIA Subpoenas 'NYT' Reporter Not Named Judy

Maggie — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:18:26 EST

Oh come on now, again? The CIA has subpoenaed Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporter James Risen, to get the name of a source from the journalist's blockbuster 2006 book State of War, in which he disclosed all sorts of things about U.S. intelligence shenanigans and said some mean things about President Bush. Maybe Risen can get some fashion tips from his former colleague, Judith Miller—it's so hard these days to figure out what goes with a public stockade.

Everyone say happy birthday to your favorite...

Maggie — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:06:00 EST

Everyone say happy birthday to your favorite contempt-of-court correspondent! Judith Miller is 59 today. Girlfriend looks pretty good for being that close to collecting Social Security, but it's probably just that permanent emollient the White House doles out to those willing to dispense with their pesky journalistic standards to advance the administration's political agenda. In fact, the only person left to trust, really, is Helen Thomas—now there's a reporter who hasn't accepted any Botox bribes. You can send Judy birthday greetings at judymillerfreespeech@yahoo.com. No, really.

What Does Judy Miller Know About Barry Bonds' Secret Meeting At The Steak 'n Shake?

abalk — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:20:06 EDT

Remember Jonathan Lee Riches, the guy suing Michael Vick for $63,000,000,000 billion? He's got an even better lawsuit! This one's against Barry Bonds, baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and "Hank Aaron's bat." But there's more!

In his lawsuit, Riches... weaves an intricate conspiracy theory involving television ratings, steroids, the cracking of the Liberty Bell, Colombian narco-terrorists, and secretly recorded conversations for which journalists Robert Novak and Judith Miller have transcripts.

You definitely want to read the whole thing on this one.

Bonds Sold Steroids To Nuns [TSG]

Media Bubble: "Hey, It's Scooter. You Know That Plame Chick? CIA."

abalk2 — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:10:58 EST

Scooter Libby would call Judy Miller at all hours just to tell her that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. [WaPo]

Man wins internal award at company meeting. [WWD]

The Times wasn't looking to replace Phil Taubman, but, you know, Dean Baquet was available. [NYO]

Jon Friedman takes a look at the Maria Bartiromo story. His conclusions may surprise you. Nah, we're just kidding, it's the same conventional wisdom you've seen everywhere else. [Marketwatch]

Times takes a big hit on Boston Globe. [NYT]

Don't look back, Greta Van Sustern; you'll see Anderson Cooper behind you. Insert your own joke here. [TVNewser]

New York magazine might move to SoHo. [WWD]

Media Bubble: MTV Viewers Smarter Than We Thought

abalk2 — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:00:40 EST

Nobody watched "I'm From Rolling Stone." [WWD]
Google in a deal with CBS; don't get too excited, it's just radio for now. [MDN]
Fox News: Ted Kennedy is a "hostile enemy" of the United States. [ThinkProgress]
Some lady from the BBC named Managing Editor at HuffPo. No word on whether or not she's got a qualified rack. [Romenesko]
Doug Brod named editor at Spin. [WWD]
Judy Miller: fans in high places. [NYS]
Blind Item: What scribe from a media-centric weekly publication was gatecrashed while covering a gossip columnist's birthday fiesta? It's not really daily news that sometimes people have to wait in line for the bathroom, but we hear that this journalist was observed over the transom trying to avoid the line by urinating off of the fire escape. The none-too-pleased host was concerned for his neighbors down under, and chided the young reporter until he turned pink-sheeted with embarrassment. [NYO, second item, "Ben Widdicombe Loves Weiners, Especially the One I Whipped Out On His Fire Escape"]
[Image via]

Media Bubble: Judith Miller Is Just a Terrible Person

abalk2 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:50:43 EST

NBC News layoffs: Dateline, Today hardest hit. Ann Curry still there, unfortunately. [LAT]
No matter what Marie Claire wants you to think, Elizabeth Vargas would never breastfeed at the anchor desk. You can't get a good angle. [Drudge]
If Judith Miller testifies under oath that she's a skeptical journalist, is it perjury? [E&P]
Maureen Dowd's ex-boyfriend is leaving the NYT OpEd page to write, blog for Science Times. [NYT]
New York Post regretfully informs you that New York Daily News city editor has jumped ship. [NYP]
Soon you'll be able to TiVo the treasure trove of crap provided by YouTube and its ilk. [NYT]
Reporters should shut up about YouTube already. [Guardian]
Lots of people go to Washington. [NYO]

Judith Miller Almost Keeps a Straight Face While Questioning Blogger Ethics

abalk2 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:10:43 EST

"I'm worried about bloggers," she said. "(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it's repeated as fact."

That'd be New York Sun freelance book critic and soi-disant First Amendment martyr Judith Miller, who finally reveals something that's bigger than her ego: her sheer, balls-out chutzpah.

While she advocates a federal shield law to protect mainstream journalists from divulging their sources, she doesn't favor extending that to bloggers who don't follow the standards and ethics of the journalism industry. Still, she wouldn't restrict a blogger's right to publish online. She said some bloggers have been invaluable in uncovering government flaws. "I'm glad to welcome them as long as they agree to the standards," she said.

Yeah, let's talk about standards. Say what you will about bloggers (unhygienic, self-centered, massively unattractive), but we can't think of any of them who served as administration mouthpieces and played an active role in pushing the United States into a failed and divisive conflict that has cost thousands of lives with no end in sight.

Okay, maybe Instapundit. Still, the point stands. Peddle that shit elsewhere, Judy, nobody's buying it here.

Former N.Y. Times reporter decries Bush policies [Topeka Capital-Journal]

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of Judith Miller

Judith Miller: The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall

Doree Shafrir — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:00:19 EST

So. You are a disgraced New York Times reporter whose bid at martyrdom failed after everyone realized that, actually, you might have led the U.S. into war. Oops!

What, pray tell, might your second act be? Something high-profile, certainly. Something that could really ... make an impact. Something that would make up for all those embarrassing episodes when you really couldn't face anyone in journalism for fear they would mock you, mercilessly, until the end of time.

Hmm. Somehow a book review for the New York Sun wasn't quite what we had in mind.

Searching for an Arab Oskar Schindler [NYS]

Judith Miller Thanks You for Your Righteous Adulation of Judith Miller

Chris Mohney — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:50:22 EDT

Apparently missing the sweet taste of martyrdom's liqueur, former New York Times reporter, WMD confabulist, and leak-protecting jailbird Judith Miller sent out a letter to 600 friends thanking them for their support during her time in the clink. Naturally, by "thank," Judy means, "how wise you were to agree with me." In her own words: "I chose to defend your right to know and you were kind enough to write to support my stance." Take your pick of the worst offense, from Miller or the Washington Post paraphrase:

She spends the rest of her time as an unofficial Joan of Arc for First Amendment issues. "It is a position I did not seek," she said yesterday, "and I hope I don't have to turn it over to someone else."

Joan of Arc? At least Joan had the decency to remain silent after getting burned to a crisp. Don't think that's an apt analogy? Once again, the problem is probably you, since as Miller sniffs, "Ordinary people get it." If you were one of the ordinary people who got it — Miller's letter, that is — by all means forward us a copy.

Judith Miller's Now Free to Say Something: Thanks [WP via Romenesko]

Media Bubble: 'Times' Pays Off Wen Ho Lee

Jesse — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:00:04 EDT

• Five news orgs — including NYT — pay Wen Ho Lee $750,000 to settle his case. Which seems not a not entirely unreasonable amount after mistakenly being labled a nuclear spy. [NYT]
• CBS News Iraq reporter Kim Dozier now off respirator, breathing on her own. [CBSNews.com]
• Charlie Gibson thinks New York's Joe Hagan "is something of a snake" and will never talk to him again. Mind you, this is over a fluffy Q&A. [Chicago Defender]
• Best attack on Judy Miller ever: She could have prevented 9/11. [TAP]
• Time loses Baghdad reporters; New York to lose dapper WSJer Matthew Rose. [NYP]
• Time's Jim Kelly to take sabbatical, visit Statue of Liberty before starting new corporate gig. [MW]
• GMA EP Ben Sherwood quits. Presumably he just couldn't bear not having Charlie Gibson's full attention. [Media Mob/NYO]

Judith Miller Finally Finds Forum Appropriate To Her Talents

abalk2 — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:02:54 EDT

Where's a reporter with no credibility and a reputation for being an administration mouthpiece to go once she's been drummed out of her former place of employ for practicing some of the most sloppy, credulous, bordering-on-disingenuous journalism that said employer has even seen, even considering the fact that it once also employed Jayson Blair? Naturally, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page, a magical world where taxes cause cancer, the ghost of Vince Foster has risen from the grave to wreak havoc on President Bush's poll numbers, and Judith Miller can be considered a legitimate journalist. Judy shows up today with the first of a two-parter on Libya's nuclear ambitions. If you think that maybe the last topic Judy should be reporting on is W.M.D. then you have no idea what passes for fact in the Rightwing Funny Farm that is the Editorial Page. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing (too busy with the piece next to it, "People Are Poor Because Jesus Hates Them"), but, guess what? We really dodged a bullet!

Many analysts no longer doubted that Libya could have made a bomb, eventually, if the program had not been stopped and it had found a way to supplement its limited technical expertise. Though most of the rotors for the centrifuges were initially missing (many turned up months later on a ship near South Africa) experts said that had the centrifuges been properly assembled in cascades—always dicey in a technologically challenged state—Libya could have produced enough fuel to make as many as 10 nuclear warheads a year.

Many analysts also now believe that if my aunt had testicles she'd be my uncle. Remind me to send that into the Journal, see if they'll print it.

Interesting side-note: Judy was originally supposed to turn in a piece on Qadaffi to The Atlantic. Maybe they decided that they had all the neocon-talking point-regurgitators that they needed.

How Gadhafi Lost His Groove [WSJ]

'Sun' Reports Bush OK'd 'Times' Leak; Drudge Promptly Kills 'Sun'

Jessica — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:22:59 EDT

Today in Holy Shit: The New York Sun reports that Vice-President Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, told a grand jury that an Iraq intelligence leak to the Times was authorized by none other than President Bush himself. Not that this surpises us — someone's got to get the press behind this war, and nothing melts Judith Miller like Bush's big, blue eyes. But what's particularly horrifying is that this not-really-illegal intelligence leak, supposedly OK'd by the big guy, lead to the eventual disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Because Drudge is linking to the Sun's exclusive, their website is only intermittently working — it's the Republican agenda in action! Impressive synergy, that. If you can't read the actual article, we've got the important bits after the jump.

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.
[...]
"Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to [Times reporter Judy] Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was 'pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.

Mr. Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said.

One of the facts Mr. Libby said he planned to disclose to Ms. Miller was that the estimate, produced in October 2002, concluded that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium." This contention was sharply at odds with Mr. Wilson's op-ed piece which argued there was no evidence of such a procurement effort, at least on a trip he took to Africa at the CIA's request.

Bush Authorized Leak to Times, Libby Told Grand Jury [NY Sun]

TK in Judy: The Canada Edition (Or, TK in Canada: The American Chicks Invade Halifax Edition)

Jesse — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:43:29 EST

Because we'd hate to disappoint George Clooney's publicist by not giving you the chance to locate and physically harm famous people, we thought we'd pass along this exciting report from Gawker's northernmost correspondent:

Thought you might be interested to know that Judy Miller is going to be giving the Sunday brunch keynote address at the Canadian Association of Journalists' National conference this May in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

(Meanwhile, the Canadian equivalent to the Grammys — the Junos — is also in Halifax this coming weekend. The host? Pamela Anderson. Quite the couple of months for the city....)

We initially misread this and thought Judy and Pammy were going to be in Halifax simultaneously. But, sadly, that's not the case. Come to think of it: Has anyone ever seen the two of them at the same place at the same time? Hmm... interesting...

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of Judith Miller.

Gold-Star Gabe Sherman Reports: Judy's On Muammar

Jesse — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:17:56 EST

The Observer's aggressively bespectacled Gabe Sherman wins the Gawky gold star for delivering the answer we've been looking for: The piece Judy Miller is working on for The Atlantic is about Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi. It was assigned months ago, Sherman reports, before James Bennet was named editor, and it's unclear whether Bennet plans to run the piece. He does, however, have a working telephone.

Miller's Latest Subject: Qaddafi [Media Mob/NYO]
Earlier: Media Questions Answered: 'Celeb Living' Lives; 'Atlantic' Editor Has a Phone