Posted on 07/13/2005 10:05:07 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Judith Miller, the finest reporter over there at the New York Times, sits in jail, even as we speak, for reasons that are so obscure that I still can’t figure it out. The essential fact is that a federal grand jury demanded that she reveal the name of a confidential source, and standing on her First Amendment rights, she refused. True grit!
So they handcuffed her, and there she is, behind bars. She's Judy, as I like to call her, since I’ve been reading her for some two decades. Judy discovered “militant Islam” as Columbus discovered America. The rest of us paid scant attention to what was stirring within the veiled continent of the kaffiyeh, but she knew the score.
The scholar Abraham Heschel defined a prophet as someone “who knows what time it is.” Judy is no prophet but she sure knew what time it was.
She covered the Middle East for nearly 30 years as a Times’ correspondent based in Cairo. To anyone who would listen, and hardly anyone did, certainly not our intelligence services, she wrote articles and books warning about a combustible youth-motivated jihad that was coming to visit Israel and the West. She knew Al Qaeda and she knew Hamas before those words got into our encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Her proof? At the coming of this new millennium, the majority of Muslims would be restless kids and young adult males, all subject to incitements coming from the mosques. She prophesied the toxic consequences when indoctrination is seasoned with testosterone. So here we are, yesterday London, today Netanya, just as she imagined it, even 30 years ago. She predicted 9/11 and the Passover Massacre except for the exact date and moment.
Meanwhile, Judith Miller sits in jail; in my view, she is like the sacrificial goat sent into the wilderness to pay for the sins of her peers. She is doing our penance.
Why is she in jail and why not Dan Rather who through manipulation allegedly tried to fix the election against George W. Bush? And Mary Mapes, Dan Rather’s producer over there at CBS, the lady who allegedly fed him all that deceitful info, why isn’t she in the slammer?
Sure, I know, the legalities were fit to tie Judith Miller but not the rest. But beyond the legalities, into plain justice, why isn’t Gideon Levy behind bars for scoffing Ilan Ramon, Israel’s hero astronaut, in the pages of Haaretz, before the space shuttle Columbia took off, and even after it crashed? Why isn’t Amira Hass in jail for her slanted pro-Arab terrorist reporting in the same Haaretz?
But Judith Miller sits in jail, as fabricators like Jayson Blair of the New York Times and Stephen Glass of the New Republic walk free. Fired, but free.
They fed us lies, but among us they walk. They even write books and make movies. No jail.
American reporters who paint our entire brave military with the brush of Abu Ghraib deserve no jail, freedom of the press after all, but there ought to be some price for publishing half-truths that amount to propaganda. Israeli reporters and photographers who falsify and incite against religious Zionists--where is their comeuppance?
What of the sins of omission when newspapers like Britain’s The Sun (among so many others) catalogue victims of Islamic terror but forget to mention Israel?
How about “cycle of violence” when Israel merely retaliates?
The BBC loves its own fairness and objectivity (no “terrorists” here), so why is Barbara Plett still among the employed? This is the BBC reporter who wept for Arafat as he was being lifted from Ramallah to die in Paris. To quote: “When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry.” These are the people the BBC sends out to cover Israel, and the United States.
But Judith Miller sits in jail, and meanwhile Dave Brown wins awards. How soon we forget. Brown is the cartoonist who, back in November, 2002. showed us a naked and bloodthirsty Ariel Sharon devouring a Palestinian Arab baby. This made it to the editorial pages of London’s Independent newspaper.
Why isn’t Dave Brown in jail for incitement and anti-Semitism? Why isn’t the Independent in jail? This cartoon won first prize in Britain, awarded by the British Political Cartoon Society. Why aren’t all of them in the cooler, all those members of this Society? (For they are all honorable men.)
Why isn’t the Chicago Tribune in the clink? That cartoon in its pages, also back in 2003, gave us a giant hook-nosed Sharon barking orders to a tiny George W. Bush.
Why isn’t PBS in jail? Back in April, our part-federally-funded TV network gave us a “Frontline” report so lopsided that even anti-Semites gasped as they cheered.
Slanderers, scoffers, defamers against Israel, against America, all are within their legal rights.
Meanwhile, Judith Miller sits in jail.
About the Writer: Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. Jack receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com.
Her "crime" pales in comparison with the fraudulent phony TANG story "concocted in Texas" by Rather, Mapes and CBS, to deliberately contaminate an American presidential election. That deserves jail time in my book!......but they're receiving awards and obtaining lucrative book deals while Miller sits in jail.
Something is very wrong with this picture.
Char :)
Judith Miller, the finest reporter over there at the New York Times, sits in jail, even as we speak, for reasons that are so obscure that I still can’t figure it out. The essential fact is that a federal grand jury demanded that she reveal the name of a confidential source, and standing on her First Amendment rights, she refused. True grit!
Maybe some emphasis will answer the writer's first phrase. The First Amendment includes no right to refuse to answer the questions of a grand jury. All you have is the Fifth against self-incrimination (until 5 SCOTUS justices decide differently).
Bookmarkin'
"... a federal grand jury demanded that she reveal the name of a confidential source, and standing on her First Amendment rights, she refused."
In a CRIMINAL investigation - a reporter is required BY LAW to reveal their sources. Judy didn't - she went to jail. This has nothing whatsoever to do with First Amendment rights - it has to do with obeying the law - even if you're a reporter. And .. since the source signed a release .. Judy was not under obligation to keep the information secret.
....unless Cliff Kincaid and also John Podhoretz (in different columns) are right and Judith herself is the source. If they are right, and she's the one who spread Valerie Plame's name around Washington, then she's a fraud, playing the victim (which Killery also attempts to do), and sticking out 4 months in jail, rather than further embarrass herself by testifying that it was she who told Bob Novak that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent "once upon a time."
All we have to do is to be patient. This story will be revealed in its entirety, eventually.
Char
Because she knows damning information about the Niger trip.
Rove gave her permission to speak, buy she's covering for the Democrats and the NYT. She knows what Arkansaside is.
Remember, she was the one that was suspected of tipping off the U.S. charity sending money to the PLO terrorists and screwed up Fitzgerald's investigation ( he's been investigating terrorists since 1993).
Now, he's investigating something else, and she won't talk to him. She says she fears for her life this time. She does have pro-Democrat/pro-terrorist ties.
Which is right where she belongs.
Remember, it was Miller who tipped off the Holy Land Foundation (suspected Islamic terrorism front) about an impending federal raid, thereby sending the terrorists on a massive shredding party and destroying all the evidence. Miller is a pig, and she is protecting only herself, her employer, and her party from embarrassment. Her "source" has waived confidentiality. Like Rush said, it's not up to Judith Miller to decide whether such a waiver is "coerced" or not.
Why would he feel it necessary to steal terrorist documents? What would the democrats have to hide when it comes to terrorism?
I'm not disagreeing with you, exactly, just pointing out that it's not that clear-cut. The law has always accepted the notion of privileged communications -- spousal, priest-penitent, doctor-patient, lawyer-client --on the principle that society benefits from those protections more than it suffers from the impediment to investigating crimes.
The argument in favor of a "reporter's privilege" isn't inventing a new legal theory; it's just arguing that the job of a reporter is similarly situated with those of priests, doctors and lawyers, in that they can't do the job if they can't ensure candor by protecting anonymity. That argument presupposes that the job is worth doing, and that society benefits in some way the law should protect.
Is protecting confidential sources an inherent part of freedom of the press, necessary for it to do its work? SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that it isn't. But 31 (at the low end; the number varies in various sources) state legislatures thought it was, and passed shield laws, so it can't be dismissed as a fringe notion.
I don't think Miller is protecting Rove, after all what would be the point after the Times reporter testified and Times "leaked" the e-mails to whoever.
I have a feeling, a very strong feeling, that this has something to do with the War on Terror.
After the grand jury is dismissed, if she still hasn't revealed her source, Novack will reveal it. She's sitting in jail for nothing.
Democrat leaders and editorialists accusing Karl Rove of treason for referring to CIA agent Valerie Plame in an off-the-record interview are ignorant of the law, according to the Washington attorney who spearheaded the legislation at the center of the controversy.
Just remember, SCOTUS knows what this case is about, we do not.
In the context of the MSM press twisting their jobs into open treason against the nation, the New York Times especially so, the idea that the job is worth doing is laughable, and the idea that there are societal benefits is preposterous.
This is a federal case, where there is no shield law that applies. Miller hasn't a leg to stand on, and I'm becoming more and more curious as to who she is protecting.
.....he'll do a "Woodward & Bernstein" style book, and make a fortune. It will then be made into a movie or TV docudrama series. Novak must be smiling like the Cheshire Cat right around now.
Thanks for your comments, McGavin999!
Char :)
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