Scary Thought, Judith Miller As A Real Victim-With the Left Paying The Price

[Annie]

http://www.nysun.com/article/21795?access=225346

Beware Your Wish

By ELI LAKE
October 20, 2005


The big irony to savor at the center of the Valerie Plame case is that everything everyone thinks they know about Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation has been leaked. Mr. Fitzgerald has not held a press conference explaining what criminal counts, if any, he will bring. Nor has the grand jury listening to all the secret evidence issued an indictment against any of the White House officials appearing before them. But if you were to believe the newspapers and the Web logs, you'd think that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby are about to be hauled off in handcuffs.

This prosecution has the potential to criminalize the very kind of journalism that for the past four years has served so well the very journalists who are egging on Mr. Fitzgerald. It now appears likely that the special prosecutor will argue that Messrs. Libby and Rove mishandled classified information by discussing Ms. Plame's identity with reporters. That is the same kind of charge that, under the espionage statute, a U.S. attorney, Paul McNulty, has brought against former American Israel Public Affairs Committee aides, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. Mr. McNulty charges that the lobbyists broke the law when they passed them on to reporters and Israeli diplomats details of Iran policy developments they'd heard from a Pentagon analyst, Larry Franklin.

These developments ought to frighten the left. Where would the president's critics be without anonymous and classified disclosures from CIA analysts, diplomats, and military officers unhappy with the president's policy? Without these intelligence leaks the public would never have learned that, say, Ahmad Chalabi allegedly fooled the entire American intelligence community into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Valerie Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, was a leaker when he, acting anonymously, shared his story of a secret trip to Niger with the New Republic. A whole literature devoted to demonizing the neoconservatives is at risk.

On one level the matter would be quite funny. Here you have a White House that values loyalty and secrecy above all else being charged with compromising the alias of one of our spies. There you have the war critics who have written their talking points from classified leaks themselves demanding maximum punishment for leakers. Joshua Micah Marshall and David Corn, call your office, if not your lawyers.

But it is turning into a tragedy. In the last five days critics of the press, bloggers, and journalists have pounced on the one person, Judith Miller, who held out the longest to defend the right of the press to keep its sources confidential. Everyone now seems to have an opinion about whether Ms. Miller should have been assigned to any story at all regarding Iraq, dredging up the silly claim that she committed journalistic crimes when she wrote about weapons of mass destruction, as if she were the only person in the press or government who believed Saddam Hussein was compiling such an arsenal.

The editor of the trade publication, Editor & Publisher, Greg Mitchell, called for the New York Times to fire Ms. Miller, complaining that he found it hard to believe Ms. Miller could not remember who told her the name "Valerie Flame," as she wrote in her notebook. Let's get this straight. The editor of a publication devoted to covering newspapers is angry that a reporter didn't disclose enough of her confidential sources to a grand jury in a criminal prosecution.

Mr. Wilson and his defenders claim that the outing of his wife's true identity to Robert Novak was part of a plan to smear him, that the leak caused great harm to national security. Mr. Wilson claims that Karl Rove told reporters in the summer of 2003, "Wilson's wife is fair game." In this respect, Mr. Wilson's defenders argue that the White House leak is different than the ones they gobble up to smear the neocons.

It turns out, however, that Mr. Wilson also said that Mr. Cheney authorized his trip to Niger and therefore the vice president knew that it was false to claim Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. Based on the accounts of reporters Ms. Miller and Matthew Cooper, it appears that if there was a mention of Mr. Wilson's wife by Messrs. Rove or Libby, it was an effort not to burn an official at the Central Intelligence Agency but to correct Mr. Wilson's own misstatement about Mr. Cheney's knowledge of his secret mission.

This version of events is supported by Mr. Novak himself. In October 2003, the columnist wrote that the CIA confirmed that Ms. Plame worked for the agency, but asked him not to write her name because it could cause her difficulties were she ever assigned to a foreign country, which the columnist said his CIA source said was doubtful. And if Ms. Plame's true identity was such a secret, then why did Mr. Wilson learn it, according to his book, on his second date with her? We'll have to wait for Mr. Fitzgerald to actually release his report to get a definitive answer on this. But for the time being, it's a time for those praying for indictments to take care about what they wish for, because they just might get it.