10/17: All The News That's Fit To Hint

Undoubtedly the most-read and most-discussed news articles from this weekend are the New York Times' twin pieces on reporter Judy Miller's involvement in the long-running CIA leak investigation into the possibly illegal disclosure of CIA official Valerie Plame's name: "The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal" by Don Van Natta, Adam Liptak and Clifford Levy, and "My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room" by Miller herself. The 1st is full of admissions of questionable decisions on the Times' part, and most seem to find it honest, if incomplete. Miller's account, however, is widely questioned, even ridiculed. Meanwhile, others focus on the probability of indictments for various admin. officials, including VP Cheney.

The 2nd-most discussed story this weekend was the Iraqi constitutional referendum. Violence was less than expected, turnout was high as predicted, and as most believed would be the case, it appears the constitution has been approved. On the whole, conservative bloggers are pleased, whereas some liberals find reason to be skeptical that much good will come of it.

Meanwhile, Pres. Bush's much-derided teleconf. interview with troops in Iraq remains timely, as one of the soldiers involved defends how it was conducted, while another participating troop is revealed to be a PR officer.

These events seem to have crowded out debate about WH counsel/SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers, but as the Bush admin. retools its approach to selling her nod, it shouldn't be crowded out much longer.

MILLER: Flame On

Among many passages being viewed skeptically, there is this from Miller's account: "On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name 'Valerie Flame.' Yet, as I told" special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, "I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled." Many in the blogosphere conclude that this person could only have been Cheney CoS Scooter Libby, as the same notebook was used to record her conversations with him.

At Seeing the Forest, liberal Dave Johnson writes of Miller couching her statements with phrases like "may have" and "could not recall": "This is a person being evasive to a grand jury, and providing cover stories for a person she obviously knows committed a crime. She is committing the crime of obstructing justice, but has been carefully coached on how to avoid indictment herself." Arianna Huffington:, on Miller being unable to recall who gave her the name "Valerie Flame": "This is as believable as Woodward and Bernstein not recalling who Deep Throat was. It also means that Judy went to jail to protect a source she can't recall." Josh Marshall points out that, in a Washington Post follow-up, onetime Miller atty Floyd Abrams comes "pretty close to calling Miller a liar, twice." In the Post story, Abrams "declined to endorse Miller's account that Libby did not want her to testify unless she was going to exonerate him," and also cast doubt on Miller's assertion that she didn't hear "Flame" from Libby. Marshall notes, at the very least Abrams "is taking it upon himself to contradict her account publicly.

In addition to the "Flame" notation, Miller's notes also refer to her as "Victoria Wilson." As JustOneMinute's conservative Tom Maguire notes, on 10/05/03, Duncan "Atrios" Black complained: "Someone really needs to tell the people at Newsweek that her name is Valerie. [Reporter Michael] Isikoff just called her Vickie. Do they know something we don't?" At the time, Isikoff was appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources." Maguire adds: "Did these reporters share one droll source, did they gossip with each other, did they have Group Brainfreeze, or what? And if Miller is lying to her own diary, why not pick a code name, like 'Diana Smith'?"

In the same post linked above, Huffington also points out apparent discrepancies between the Times' account -- From the Times: "Philip Taubman ... asked Ms. Miller and other Times reporters whether they were among the six. Ms. Miller denied it." Huffington wonders if Miller misled the Times: "If she denied it falsely, is there any journalistic institution in the United States that would keep on a reporter who is dishonest to her editors?" -- Huffington also notes that when interviewed by the Times, Miller said "she made a strong recommendation that a story be pursued on [Plame husband] Joe Wilson, but that her editor rejected it. Problem is, Miller refuses to identify the editor. [Then-DC bureau chief] Jill Abramson ... says it was not her. So who was it? And why is Miller refusing to supply the name of the editor? ... What journalistic rules is she abiding by?"

Mickey Kaus asks, "Did Judy's lawyer scam the special prosecutor?" Per the Times, Miller atty Bennett, having reviewed Miller's notes, "assured Mr. Fitzgerald that Ms. Miller had only one meaningful source. Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questions to Mr. Libby and the Wilson matter." Kaus argues, "But a key question is who told Miller the name 'Valerie Plame' ... Miller says she's not sure it was Libby. Therefore ... she might well have had another very 'meaningful' source..." Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher makes a similar argument, except she thinks Miller was "punking" Bennett"; Hamsher contends that Miller was "engaged in screwing over everyone she ever touched in this walking disaster."

At the all-Miller-all-the-time Huffington Post, ex-KE'04 aide Ari Melber comments on how Miller "agreed to deliberately deceive her readers by describing [Libby] as a 'former Hill staffer,'" pointing out, "This misleading sourcing violates the New York Times official guidelines, a key fact the Times article ignored." He adds, it also helped "advance the White House's smear campaign" against Wilson. Going the opposite direction, NRO's Andy McCarthy argues: "It is not a crime in the United States for political partisans to join together in a plan to discredit their political adversaries. It is something that is done everyday."

TalkLeft's "For anyone who still thinks she is going to be indicted, please understand that her lawyers would have carefully vetted this article before they allowed her to send it in to the Times. If Miller was in jeopardy from Fitzgerald, there would have been no article."

BUSH ADMIN: Nervous Yet?

Maguire assesses Fitzgerald's case: "Fitzgerald will have a hard time getting [WH dep. CoS] Karl Rove for perjury/obstruction on his Matt Cooper testimony, but he is almost certainly weighing charges of mishandling classified information." He puts Rove's likelihood of indictment at 50%. Libby's primary vulnerability seems to be perjury and obstruction of justice for his failure to disclose his June 23 conversation with Judy Miller," as well as "mishandling of classified information. Probability of indictment -- 70%."

A Bloomberg report this a.m. suggests that Cheney may also be a target in the probe, and that Wilson and Plame may sue Bush/Cheney and others "for the alleged harm done to Plame's career." Liberal CAP's Judd Legum notes that this would confirm what ABC's George Stephanopolous floated earlier this month, that Bush and Cheney "were actually involved in some of these discussions" about Plame/Wilson (see 10/3 Blogometer). A Rathergate, conservative Mark Kilmer writes, the Bloomberg reporter "concedes that while Fitzgerald might not seek to indict the Veep, he can write nasty things about him in a report. It sounds to me as if the Bloomberg reporter decided that Fitzgerald was talking to a lot of people who knew Dick Cheney and decided that wouldn't it be kewl of Cheney were a subject of the probe?"

Liberal econ prof Brad DeLong writes, "If Cheney and Bush had been taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, they would have told Libby to turn himself in more than two years ago. They didn't."

NEW YORK TIMES: Pinch In A Pinch?

While the Times claims Miller "cooperated," the report itself notes that Miller "generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes." NYU's Jay Rosen wrote to Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis asking for a clarification; she replied: "While Judy put limits on what she would discuss, the fact that she did sit for interviews and wrote her own account of her testimony certainly represents cooperation." Rosen comments: "I guarantee you Times journalists did not see her 'limits' as reasonable or as cooperation."

Decision '08's Mark Coffey writes, publisher Arthur Sulzberger "appears to ride roughshod over Gail Collins... perhaps I should start ridiculing him more often for the horrible editorial page of the Times."

Kaus notices that Frank Rich's column on Miller and Plamegate was not restricted to TimesSelect readers. He quotes Just One Minute's Maguire writing: "Maybe TimesSelect is only for the unimportant pieces." Kaus asks in a separate post: "Isn't this a major blow against testimonial immunity for reporters, in practice?" He writes: "The message sent to every prosecutor in the country is 'Don't believe journalists who say they will never testify. A bit of hard time and they just might find a reason to change their minds. Judy Miller did.' ... More journalists will now go to jail, quite possibly, than if Miller had just cut a deal right away, before taking her stand on 'principle.'"

BUSH: Stage Two

Sgt. Ron Long, one of the soldiers interviewed by Bush in his controversial teleconf. with troops, writes at his blog, They Call Us, "Doc". He strongly objects to the notion that the event was "staged": "First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with" the POTUS, "so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President. ... We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically." Conservative Don Surber adds: "That's it. A couple of NCOs and the like get to meet the Man himself. They try not to muck it up. And the press goes to town with this as a 'staged' event." The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman comments: "The only problem is: the White House had told reporters it would be freewheeling with no screening. That's WHY this story was done."

Village Voice's Bush Beat reports that another of the soldiers in the teleconf., Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo, "was actually a flack herself, though she didn't reveal it during the regime's 24-minute infomercial." An image is provided, partially captioned: "Arrow denotes flack." Liberal MediaCitizen quotes from other MSM reporting on Iraq, pointing out that "she hasn't always been identified in her role." He adds: "Lombardo's job is to make the handover to Iraqi forces look good." In a later post, he calls attention to 1st Lt. Gregg Murphy, whose "pro-Bush rhetoric is sprinkled throughout the media in articles dating back to 2003. This begs the question: how could one soldier get so much face time?"

Liberal ex-journalist Joe Scott recounts Bush's recent string PR missteps, going back to Katrina, adding, "presidents often begin to self-destruct in their fifth year. Bush's unwavering reliance on a tiny inner circle of loyalists has put him in harm's way."

In what might have been an amusing but otherwise unnoteworthy event, a 10/14 "Today" show segment featuring NBC reporter Michelle Kosinski in a canoe in Wayne, NJ, which has experienced flooding on account of last week's heavy rains. Except the water was only about 6 inches deep, as was made clear when 2 men walked past the camera. MRC's News Busters hosts video, with an explanation tying it to the Bush teleconf. According to TV Newser, Kosinski and her prod. "told higher-ups that the water wasn't deep -- but that fact was apparently irrelevant" More TV Newser: Remember 'think big'? 'Today' staffers are being pushed to come up with 'stunts' to pump the program's ratings. Let's start to keep track of these stunts...

IRAQ: A History Of Violence

Andrew Sullivan cites the quotation of an Iraqi man in the New York Times: "I voted then, for Saddam, of course, because I was afraid ... But this time, I came here by my own choice. I am not afraid anymore. I am a free man." Sullivan comments: "This, of course, is bigger news than Judy Miller's pathetic self-defense. If the turnout reaches 65 percent, this will have been a real triumph for the forces of sanity and self-government."

At RedState, Pejman Yousefzadeh writes, Sunni participation was high, "though laughably, this was noted as a bad thing on ABC's This Week program today since increased Sunni participation would lead to increased resistance which would somehow lead to a civil war. Note that these Cassandras are the same people who tried to find doom and gloom in the January 30th elections because there was a lack of Sunni participation. You just can't please some people, I guess)." Armando at Daily Kos disagrees: "Sunnis voted overwhelmingly against the Constitution. But despite this ... the Constitution will be ratified anyway. Thus, high Sunni participation demonstrated that they lack any political power. ... Does one expect that the [Sunni] insurgency will now LOSE support in those areas? How absurd." In this post and another, he calls it the "Myth of the Blue Fingers," after the purple-blue dye used to mark that a person has voted. In the follow-up he notes that some Sunni leaders are claiming fraud: "Was there fraud? Who knows? I doubt there was a need. But it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the Sunni think."

AMERICAblog: "Oh the drama, the 'constitution' that is lacking any substance seems to have passed, only to put the real fight off for another few months when the details are actually put in to the document. Expect the normal hype out of the WH, just like we did after the first vote but don't expect any results."

THE MIERS NOMINATION: Overturn Of The Screw

John Fund's 10/17 column has been attracting notice for reporting that 2 judges "close to Miers," including Nathan Hecht, privately assured Focus on the Family's James Dobson that "she had indicated she would vote to overturn" Roe v. Wade. Crooks and Liars recalls Dobson's opposition to PA Sen. Arlen Specter as Jud Cmte Chair, opining, "If this is true, Dobson lied to everyone about his Karl Rove conversations and methinks Arlen Specter will have his revenge on Dobson when the time comes."

Time reports, the WH is reportedly set to "relaunch" Miers' nod, moving from a "biographical" to an "accomplishment phase." Conservative Ed Morrissey, who is guardedly pro-Miers, on the WH's "do-over": "My prediction will be that the administration will talk more about some of the work she did for her clients ... but conservatives will expect something more significant than just client work." He is somewhat impressed that Sec/State Condoleezza Rice is speaking out in Miers' favor: "If Rice goes on the offense for Miers, it will take some of the steam out of the anti-Miers momentum."

Patrick Frey at Patterico's Pontifications goes through the much talked about Miers-Bush correspondence, available at The Smoking Gun, reproducing a few choice lines. He writes, "It's a little tough not to wince" as one reads it. A typical note goes: "Keep up all the great work. The state is in great hands." In fact, the word "great" shows up so often, he boldfaces each occurrence to draw attention to its alleged overuse.

TERRORISM: Everything's OK?

In a 10/14 article -- "Student's Suicide Sets Off Explosion Of Theories by Blogs" -- the Wall Street Journal sets out to debunk the speculation that Joel Hinrichs, a Univ. of OK student who blew himself up outside the Sooners football game on 10/1 (see previous Blogometer coverage). The WSJ writes, "blogs and local Oklahoma TV stations added several apparent inaccuracies, including: that Mr. Hinrichs was a Muslim and visited the mosque frequently; that he tried to enter the stadium twice but was rebuffed; that he had a one-way airplane ticket to Algeria; that there were nails in the bomb and that Islamic extremist literature was found in his apartment." CBS News' Public Eye had been following the case, in particular the MSM's previous lack of interest, and is now satisfied by the WSJ story, writing, "it's a step toward putting much of the conspiracy talk to rest. And an example of how MSM organizations have more to gain in engaging such stories than ignoring them and letting them fester."

But most conservative bloggers who raised the questions are hardly persuaded. The Jawa Report, on the article: "No new facts are cited to dispute reasonable questions that Hinrichs was a terrorist--and they are just that, questions. They simply cite [ex-Sen./Univ. of OK pres.] David Boren's assurances that it was not terrorism -- statements he began to make before the investigation had even begun -- the protests of Hinrichs' father that his son was not a Muslim, and a single FBI statement in an ongoing investigation." Power Line's John Hinderaker writes, the WSJ "seems to be making a logical leap ... It is very likely true that Hinrichs had no connection to any terrorist or extremist organization ... But the question whether Hinrichs was part of a terrorist cell is entirely different from the question whether he intended mass murder." On the other hand, NE-based conservative Ryne McClaren is appalled at the misreporting in the blogosphere: "What's even worse is how many blogs -- this one included -- took the information presented at face value. Always a dicey proposition when the MSM is involved, of course. But I'm still not buying the guy committing suicide with a bomb."

The existence of an apparent suicide note was reported by the Daily Oklahoman on 10/16; Heritage's Mark Tapscott asks: "Why did the FBI and Joint Task Force on Terrorism insist virtually from the outset that Hinrichs was a lone suicide, but then waited nearly two weeks before disclosing the existence of the message allegedly left by Hinrichs on his computer?"

REDISTRICTING: The Spirit Of 77

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum is one of many CA Dems deliberating GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's redistricting measures. As he puts it: "The argument in favor is that somebody has to do it first, so why not set a good example and hope that other states follow? The argument against asks why we should be the wide-eyed naifs who cheerfully set up a neutral system in a big blue state while Tom DeLay and his pals are busily gerrymandering big red states?" But most important is whether it "truly sets up a neutral system." Liberal Brad Plumer argues it will benefit the GOP: "Under [Prop 77's] guidelines, the judges drawing the boundaries will end up packing the majority of urban voters into a few concentrated, ultra-Democratic districts. ... If you wanted more electoral competition, then you'd try to create a bunch of districts that, say, combined parts of "blue" urban areas with parts of "red" suburbs. But Schwarzenegger's plan does the exact opposite." Markos Moulitsas will be voting in favor, and writes that he's "blown away by the rampant misinformation floating around on this issue, particularly the fiction that Arnold would pick the redistricting panel himself."

FARRAKHAN: Is It All A Farra-con?

DC-based liberal Oliver Willis, on the "Millions More" march on the Nat'l Mall, organizer Louis Farrakhan, and key participants Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton: "I think it's past time for there to be a changing of the guard in black leadership in America. ... There are hundreds of black leaders who believe in improving the lives of black Americans, and America in general, but the media keeps giving time to the Axis of Irrelevancy."

Conservative Gateway Pundit live-blogs the march via C-SPAN, commenting: "Wow! This guy, Farrakhan, like Castro and Chavez knows how to give a long-winded speech. He just got through urging blacks to take up Castro on his offers. Next he talked about Mao Tse Tung and what a hero he was..." He writes, "But, once again the American public will be snookered by the media... Erin Texiera, from the AP shamelessly does not mention any of the deranged communist talk from today!"

And Republic of T calls attention to the fact that gay black activist Keith Boykin was denied the chance to speak at the event, after having already been invited. He comments on the snub and posts the speech he would have given at his website.

WHITE HOUSE '08: His Hopes Aren't Dasched?

Rapid City Journal's Mount Blogmore interviewed ex-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) manager Steve Hildebrand, who "makes clear that he has definite plans for 2008." Currently, Hildebrand is still in Daschle's employ. According to the post, Hildebrand says of Daschle's possible WH "ambitions," he "sounds a lot like Newt Gingrich did this past week."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Bloggerdammerung?

Technorati's David Sifry unveils his latest "State of the Blogosphere" report, summarizing:

• As of 10/05, "Technorati is now tracking" 19.6M weblogs
• "The total number of weblogs tracked continues to double about every 5 months"
• "The blogosphere is now over 30 times as big as it was 3 years ago, with no signs of letup in growth"
• About 70K new weblogs "are created every day"
• "About a new weblog is created each second"

But more and more in recent months, bloggers have criticized Technorati and related services for allowing through too many "spam blogs," rendering their search services less valuable. Jeff Jarvis writes: "Is it time for tough love: Should PubSub, IceRocket, Technorati, et al refuse to index Blogspot blogs until Google does something? Google, after all, should be the very best placed company in the world to deal with spam sites. Funny how the similar ego search on Google blogsearch turns up no spam. Google needs to both fix Blogspot and share its secrets for ignoring blogspam."

LEST WE FORGET: The Biggio They Are ...

On account of the Houston's 2-1 win over St. Louis last night, veteran Astros 2B Craig Biggio will have at least a few more games this season in which to get beaned at the plate. And Plunk Biggio will be keeping track -- as the name implies, the blog is devoted to Biggio's "(probably unintentional) quest to break the all time major league career record for getting hit by pitches." At 273 drillings career-to-date, Biggio trails only early 20th-cent. Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings, who earned 287.

Scrolling text in the sidebar gives credit to those who "made this site made possible, among them "...David Wells, Kip Wells, Turk Wendell, Jake Westbrook, Gabe White, Bob Wickman, David Williams, Dontrelle Willis, Paul Wilson, Matt Wise, Jay Witasick, Randy Wolf, Kerry Wood..."

NOTES AND ERRATA: We Apologize For Any Pain We May Have Caused

A couple of corrections to make from the las week:

On 10/11, we indicated that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had dissented in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger. In fact, she sided with the majority in that ruling; what we meant was Kelo v. New London.

On 10/12, we wrote that New York Times' Doug Jehl was in charge of the Times' reporting on the Times' involvement of the Miller case; while Jehl did cover the Miller story as it unfolded, managing ed. Jon Landman oversaw the team that produced this weekend's coverage.