As part of my usual weekday breakfast routine, I watched "Democracy Now" this morning. Hosted by Amy Goodman, it's one of the few American news sources available to the public in this country that doesn't come owing to corporate sponsorship or ownership, thus it's news unfiltered through hidden agendas.
I wish I could assert such faith in the NY Times, but that's not possible. And the more that comes out about prison freed Judy Miller, seen strutting and smiling before cameras upon her re-emergence into public life, the more difficult it becomes reconciling the images of nearly 2,000 flag draped coffins of young Americans dead in part because of her phony reporting.
As reported by Greg Mitchell on Democracy Now today, even after Judy Miller was removed by her editor, Bill Keller, at the Times from from reporting on Iraq and WMD's "somehow she kept wheedling her way back onto the beat. And what an admission for the top editor to say he could not control her, and I think that's the thread that runs through all this is the incredible things that the leadership at the paper allowed her, the special privileges that were given to her, that she was able to run, as she called herself – 'Miss Runamok' was her nickname for herself. And there's an incredible hidden story there on how Judith Miller was given this – especially given her track record on W.M.D.’ s, it would seem like she should have been the one person that you would rein in, not the one person that you would let run free."
That's enough to make one suspicious of certain Times higher-ups in the run up to war.
Now, get a load of Vice President Cheney's assistant, Scooter Libby's 'welcome back' letter to Judy Miller while she was still in prison "defending the First Amendment" by not revealing a source. (Yeh, right.) Says Libby in the opening of his distant and coldly impersonal letter, “Dear Judy, Your reporting, and you are missed. Like many Americans, I admire your principled stand. But, like many friends and readers, I would welcome you back among the rest of us, doing what you do best—reporting.” (Source: "A 'Dear Judy' Letter from 'Scooter'--With 'Admiration'" Editor & Publisher, 10/1/05)
There's more. It's a fuckin' love fest. If Miller possessed any skills as a reporter, she prostituted them and herself by selling us Cheney and Bush's war. Two thousand kids are dead because she chose to bed the gypsies, tramps and thieves. And who else at the NY Times, that permitted her unreined reporting after being relieved of those assignments, coddled the agenda of these neocons?
Thanks Democracy Now! God bless you, Amy Goodman. God damn you, Judy Miller. Two thousand Americans are now dead.
2 comments:
Good for you, Dada. Judith Miller has actually done harm to the valid journalistic practice of protecting confidential sources who are true "whistle blowers." Instead she has protected Bush's inner circle minions in their smear campaign against a former diplomat who had the temerity to expose the lies about the Niger/Iraq nuclear nexus. And just wait, the Judith Miller book deal is probably next. Let's see,it could be called, "Martyr to the First Amendment: In the footsteps of Thoreau."
Eljoven
Good point, bloodroot. My apologies. I now count myself and my neighbors among those gypsies, tramps, and thieves....formerly known as lower middle class.
Thanks for setting me straight.
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