New York Post:Times Trashfest New York Post:Times Trashfest

John Podhoretz takes the Gray Lady to task for its recent treatment of Judith Miller. As long as she was in jail refusing to divulge her sources, they backed her. But now, it turns out, that she had a relatively warm relationship with Scooter Libby, and, as a result, one article after another is coming out trashing her. Of course, no mention is made that this is how she has been getting her stories for decades. Esp. egregious are the vieled hints of some sort of almost romantic or sexual relationship between the two, despite the fact that both are married (to others) and Libby apparently has small kids at home.

But what the Times fails to point out is that this is all really about Iraq and our invasion thereof. Miller had been the NYT expert on WMD, and confidently predicted finding large quantities of them until it became obvious to all after our invasion that they had somehow disappeared. So, Podhoretz suggests that the trashfest against Miller by the Times is primarily about the fact that through her, they were involved in justifying the invasion, and thus, on the wrong side of "Bush Lied, People Died". And, this is unforgivable for the Times.

The NY Post has another editorial out on the same subject: "All the Smears Fit to Print". In it, they point out:

First and foremost, the "Dump on Judy" movement — both within and outside the Times — seems based not on her behavior in this matter but rather the left's continued fury over articles she wrote about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

That her reporting appears to have been wrong — at least about the presence of WMD stockpiles at the start of the war — is taken by her critics as symbolic of the war itself: Discredit her, and you've discredited the Bush administration.

In other words, this isn't about journalistic ethics — it's about partisan politics.