One quick note on the Judy Miller case

She's a liar.

She didn't make a deal with Fitzgerald. He made a deal with her. My proof?

A federal district judge here lifted a contempt order Wednesday against Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, after she testified before a grand jury investigating the C.I.A. leak case about recently discovered notes relating to a conversation she had with a senior White House official.

Ms. Miller has insisted, of course, that she was in the catbird seat the whole time:

Throughout her legal battle, Miller always insisted she wouldn’t allow herself to be put in the position where Fitzgerald could call her back in front of the grand jury and question her about whatever he wanted. “I didn’t want to participate in a fishing expedition,” she told Lou Dobbs after her release. “We had asked the special counsel over a year ago, would he narrow his investigation to the source of his interest and the subject of interest? And he wouldn’t do it then. When he agreed to do it… I knew I’d be able to get out of jail.” Well, now she’s been in to the grand jury two times, with an additional meeting with Fitzgerald yesterday. No word on whether he had his waders on, and his tackle box out.

Fitzgerald was ready to haul her back to jail on a moment's notice. She never had a choice but to testify until he was satisfied (and he obviously knew she wasn't telling everything).

And the New York Times has been in on the spin the whole time.

Bill Keller, The Times's executive editor, said: "It's a great relief to have Judy out of legal jeopardy. And it should clear the way for The Times to do what we've been yearning to do: tell the story." Mr. Keller had said in an earlier message to the paper's staff that once Ms. Miller's "obligations to the grand jury are fulfilled, we intend to write the most thorough story we can of her entanglement with the White House leak investigation."

You will notice that, at no time did Bill Keller ever say: "Judy can't talk because she's still under the penalty of the contempt citation." Instead of the plain truth, we get some vague statement about "obligations to the grand jury." Obfuscation, in other words, instead of "just the facts."

Gonna have to change that masthead to "All the news that fits our comfort zone."