Judith Miller Goes With What She's Got

The latest appeal to keep The New York Times' Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper from being sent to jail for refusing to reveal sources in the case of Valerie Plame's exposure as a CIA operative was filed amid pessimism that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn their sentences for contempt of court. Nevertheless, on March 23, a friend-of-the-court brief was submitted by 36 news organizations arguing that there is substantial evidence "to doubt that a crime has been committed" by the leaker.

Meanwhile, over a period of weeks, Miller has published only one story in the Times on her current beat, the Iraqi oil-for-food program. But a very active life has continued for her on the lecture circuit in the role of principled reporter prepared to go to jail to protect confidential sources.

At a March 17 event at the University of California at Berkeley, billed as "The Consequences of Confidential Sources: Jail?," Miller was interviewed by a very protective friend, Lowell Bergman. A longtime producer for CBS's "60 Minutes," Bergman currently works on investigative reporting projects for Miller's paper.

Bonnie Powell of the university's news center reported that Miller acidly proclaimed journalists "are not perfect. We're not saints. But try running a functioning democracy without a free press." And who better to make the case regarding non-sainthood, following her dangerously wrong 2002-2003 reporting on WMD in Iraq, which at times was based on outright collusion with confidential sources in and out of government who had wanted the United States to invade Iraq? Miller, in fact, praised Ahmad Chalabi for "never lying about his motives," and noted his political comeback in Baghdad.

In her public appearances, she makes the argument that the fight is not about Judy Miller – it never is – but about "shutting down the flow of information. I'm not afraid of going to jail for my beliefs. It's a proud American tradition. I am not a martyr, and I don't want to go to jail, but I will."

She repeated several times at Berkeley (I have watched the video) her excuse that "you go with what you've got," when referring both to her WMD sources and the unidentified leakers she is now protecting in the Plame case. Miller carries on with her now-tired argument that if she was duped by her unnamed sources on WMD, well, so was the Bush Administration.

Miller indicated she's not apologizing for believing there were WMDs in Iraq until the president does. "I think I was given information by people who believed the information they were giving the president," she told Bergman. Ultimately, Miller said, she "wrote the best assessment that I could based on the information that I had."

She attempted to tie the controversy over her WMD reporting to her current court struggles, and she partly blamed others when arguing that she had heard only after the fact that there had been people who had reservations about the WMD intelligence she was receiving. "I wish they had come forward at the time to express those reservations," she said. "To me, this case that I am now involved in emphasizes the importance of getting as many people as possible to come forward with a dissenting view, or allegations of wrongdoing."

Despite her eloquent passion in defense of freedom of the press, her historical revisionism on the WMD story, when passing off such falsehoods, boggles the mind.

What is Miller's public campaign – waged all across the country – all about, other than a transparent attempt to rehabilitate her damaged reputation as a journalist? As quoted by James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times on Sunday: "I am involved in a fight, a fight for my life right now, which is to stay out of jail and to continue to be able to function as a reporter. That has been an all-consuming fight."