Drifting back to Judy Miller

Some interesting bits from the NYT article:

Douglas Frantz, who succeeded Mr. Engelberg as the investigative editor, said that Ms. Miller once called herself "Miss Run Amok."

"I said, 'What does that mean?' " said Mr. Frantz, who was recently appointed managing editor at The Los Angeles Times. "And she said, 'I can do whatever I want.' "

Ms. Miller said she remembered the remark only vaguely but must have meant it as a joke, adding, "I have strong elbows, but I'm not a dope."

Ms. Miller said she was proud of her journalism career, including her work on Al Qaeda, biological warfare and Islamic militancy. But she acknowledged serious flaws in her articles on Iraqi weapons.

"W.M.D. - I got it totally wrong," she said. "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them - we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could."

In two interviews, Ms. 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.

On July 30, 2003, Mr. Keller became executive editor after his predecessor, Howell Raines, was dismissed after a fabrication scandal involving a young reporter named Jayson Blair.

Within a few weeks, in one of his first personnel moves, Mr. Keller told Ms. Miller that she could no longer cover Iraq and weapons issues. Even so, Mr. Keller said, "she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm."

Let's see: self-described "Miss Run Amok" because "I do whatever I want." Including, apparently, get a security clearance. And (as mentioned just below) cover WMD in a way that made her paper apologize and her look a fool even in the reporting itself. But, as she explains in the article, it's not her fault.

And she's not a dope, but she apparently thinks everyone else is:

At the behest of President Bush and Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Libby had signed a blanket form waiver, which his lawyer signaled to my counsel was not really voluntary, even though Mr. Libby's lawyer also said it had enabled other reporters to cooperate with the grand jury. But I believed that nothing short of a personal letter and a telephone call would allow me to assess whether Mr. Libby truly wished to free me from the pledge of confidentiality I had given him. The letter and the telephone call came last month.

Equally central to my decision was Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He had declined to confine his questioning to the subject of Mr. Libby. This meant I would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Mr. Wilson or his wife - for articles published in The Times. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning.

Without both agreements, I would not have testified and would still be in jail.

And we can also understand, now, why she kept "drifting back" to national security issues. What good is a security clearance if you can't use it? Oh, wait, she's a reporter! She can't use it!

When does somebody besides E&P and Jane Hamshaw put two and two together? Somebody like the editor and publisher of the New York Times?

Having read her article published just after the invastion of Iraq, about the "mysterious man" she was not allowed near, who "pointed out" (apparently; even Ms. Miller with her security clearance was never sure) where the "WMD" were (once upon a time?) on the ground near her, her "tua culpa" that she, too, was fooled, just makes you wonder, again, how smart she really is.

Or does she, like most "smart" people, just think she's really clever?

One other update: this could be why Miller doesn't "recall" who her source for "Valerie Flame" was:

Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide could face obstruction charges over whether he tried to shape a New York Times reporter's testimony about the outing of a covert CIA operative, people close to the case said on Sunday.

Maybe Mom & Dad were right; maybe lies do finally catch up with you.