Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

Re: # 97

Feroz...
``I honestly think that they deserve better this crew.``

Clichés are in fact verities, and this one is no exception: ``People get the government they deserve.``

Here’s a short paragraph from an essay posted on AlterNet today. You can get the entire article at this URL:

http://www.alternet.org/story/27639/

“Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq`s weapons programs, recently spoke in a public forum about the U.S. crimes done to Iraq: ``This is about a failure of not only the Bush Administration but of the United States of America, and we have to look in the mirror and recognize that, well, all the Bush Administration did is take advantage of a systemic failure on the part of the United States as a whole…”

Amen, Brother Scott.

Q: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the dumbest of them all?

A: Guess.

re: arjun_m

Arjun, thanks for the replies.

I guess, the method of getting them out might be a case of semantics as long as we get them out. I hope that you are right; these people have caused too damage to the United States and to the nation, where I onced lived and still love. Americans are some of the kindest and most generous people, I have met and I honestly think that they deserve better this crew.

Ciao

Judith Miller departs New York Times

Stephen Brook
Thursday November 10, 2005

MediaGuardian.co.uk

Judith Miller, the New York Times journalist who went to jail to protect a source, has left the paper with an undisclosed severance package after weeks of controversy.
In a letter to the editor published in the paper, Miller - who was criticised for her role in a Bush administration intelligence leak scandal - said she had resigned because she had become the news herself.

``I am honored to have been part of this extraordinary newspaper and proud of my accomplishments here - a Pulitzer, a DuPont, an Emmy and other awards - but sad to leave my professional home,`` wrote Miller, who spent 28 years at the New York Times.

``But mainly I have chosen to resign because over the last few months, I have become the news, something a New York Times reporter never wants to be.

``Even before I went to jail, I had become a lightning rod for public fury over the intelligence failures that helped lead our country to war.``

Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal her source for the information that Valerie Plame, the wife of a government critic, was a CIA agent. She was released after she admitted her source was the vice-president chief of staff, Lewis ``Scooter`` Libby, who has been charged over the incident.

Miller was also criticised for reporting in the build-up to the war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, a false claim that boosted the case for war.

The New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, who had criticised her in a staff memo, told staff he did not believe she had an improper relationship with Mr Libby but that he was troubled by an incident where she might have misled her bureau chief.

The New York Times, which had refused to publish Miller`s letter as an opinion page column, said she would have been unable to remain reporting for the paper due to her profile.

``We are grateful to Judy for her significant personal sacrifice to defend an important journalistic principle,`` said Arthur Sulzberger Jr, publisher of the New York Times, in Wednesday`s statement. ``I respect her decision to retire from the Times and wish her well.``

Miller, 57, said in an interview with the paper that she was a ``free woman,`` from the ``convent of the New York Times, a convent with its own theology and its own catechism. Referring to her role in reporting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Miller said the solution to the problems generated by reporters relying on intelligence that turned out to be faulty was ``more reporting``.

``The answer to bad information is more reporting. I regret that I was not permitted to pursue answers. The right of reply and the obligation to correct inaccuracies are also the mark of a free and responsible press.``

Miller spent more than 85 days in jail, more than twice as long as any other American journalist has spent incarcerated on similar charges.

``Though some colleagues disagreed with my decision to testify, for me to have stayed in jail after achieving my conditions would have seemed self-aggrandizing martyrdom or worse, a deliberate effort to obstruct the prosecutor`s inquiry into serious crimes.``

The veteran reporter, who said she had received multiple job offers since her resignation, will post replies to criticism of her conduct on her website, JudithMiller.org.

``I also leave knowing that the Times will continue the tradition of excellence that has made it indispensable to its readers, a standard for journalists, and a bulwark of democracy,`` she wrote.