In case you wondered: The Judy Miller Saga is front page news in Italy, too. On my second day there last week, I managed to spot coverage not only in the International Herald Tribune but also in the Italian papers. Maybe, like many in the American press, the Italians resent her for helping to push their country into a war. But now, the scandal has gotten even more interesting, and disturbing, with Miller's angry response to the critique by the newspaper's public editor.
In that e-mail, among other things, she calls Executive Editor Bill Keller's memo to staff last Friday "ugly," bluntly attacks the veracity of Jill Abramson (the key managing editor in this mess), and lamely defends her various ethical lapses. What does someone at the Times have to do to get fired? After Judy's latest e-mail, it appears that either Miller goes, or Keller and Abramson need to walk away themselves.
When I left the U.S. on Monday, I felt a bit lonely out on the limb. Hours after the Times had published its account of the official leak that led Miller to jail, I called on Keller to fire her. (He’d tried re-assigning her once before, but Ms. Run Amok somehow wondered into the national security field again, behind his back.) Returning from abroad, I found that, in the press, viewing Miller’s dismissal as warranted, or at least inevitable, was now approaching conventional wisdom -- but not yet within key offices at the Times.
Keller, apparently after getting his own paper's 6,000-word Miller critique translated into English, finally came out with his much-needed and long-delayed mea culpa on Friday. But he made no mention of getting rid of his favorite albatross -- though this was before she talked back to him, and his public editor, in the just-published e-mails. Maureen Dowd, at last, got around to criticizing Miller on Saturday, calling her everything from journalism’s Becky Sharp to a "Woman of Mass Destruction," but hinted that she deserved to keep drawing a check from the Times so long as she didn’t get to write about national security.
Then Public Editor Barney Calame offered his critique on Sunday, again suggesting that something be done about the lady, maybe make her an editor, but you don’t necessarily have to get rid of her. He also quoted Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.,'s revelation that he had already talked to Judy about "new limits" on her employment, but not dismissal.
Why not? She’s brought dishonor to the paper for so long and in so many ways you have to wonder: How and why does she get to keep her job? Apparently many Times staffers are asking the same question. Some even wonder why Keller still has a job there, according to Newsweek.
How can Keller keep Miller on at the Times, after complaining that she hadn’t played honest with him -- especially in light of an Associated Press scoop this weekend that got less attention than it deserved due to all the other Miller dramatics? "The Case of the Missing Notebook," as I called it two weeks ago, has now been solved.
The AP’s John Solomon reported that Miller belatedly gave prosecutors her notes of the key June 23 meeting in the CIA leak probe only after being shown White House records of it, according to two lawyers familiar with the investigation. In her first grand jury appearance Sept. 30, Miller did not mention the meeting and retrieved her notes about it only when prosecutors showed her visitor logs showing she had met with Libby in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House.
"One lawyer familiar with Miller's testimony said the reporter told prosecutors at first that she did not think the June meeting would have involved (Valerie) Plame," AP’s John Solomon wrote. "Miller said that because she had just returned from covering the Iraq war, she was probably giving Libby an update about her experiences there, the lawyer said." However, when Miller retrieved her notes -- surprise -- she discovered they indicated that Libby had given her information about Plame, or "Flame," at that meeting. Fitzgerald then arranged for her to return to the grand jury to testify about it.
If you can believe her excuse you can believe that she has no idea who told her about "Valerie Flame." But maybe we'll learn more this week when the Fitz hits the fan.
I don’t know why it took Maureen Dowd so long to criticize Miller -- in print. Her column, when it did appear on Saturday, was suitably savage, with its conclusion that returning Miller to the national security beat would put the newspaper itself in imminent danger. But surely Dowd, and Keller, know that the newspaper grows more imperiled every day it fails to order Miller to run amok some place else, and on someone else’s dime.
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.
