No journalist likes to see a fellow reporter in jail, but as even the NY Times observed in an editorial, there is a difference between protecting the identy of a source who could be punished by superiors for revealing information and a source who is actively promoting propaganda for higher-ups, or trying to smear someone on behalf of higher-ups.

As William E Jackson, a former U.S. arms control official, wrote on June 12 in Editor & Publisher, It would appear that this is more likely what the Times' Judith Millir was up to in her dealings with Rove et al. If so, it would seriously undermine her self-described role as journalistic hero, and could eventually expose her as more of a co-conspirator in the campaign to smear a real whistle-blower--Joseph Wilson.

Miller, after all, was a willing purveyor of the WMD falsehoods being spread by the White House and Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion (they helped her to peddle her breathless book claiming Iraq was a hive of WMD activity under Saddam Hussein). Wilson's whistle-blowing about the false claim of alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium yellow-cake ore in Niger was as damaging to Miller's book as it was to Bush's invasion agenda.

If she, as some now suspect, actually helped spread Rove's and the White House's treasonous poison about Wilson's CIA wife, Valerie Plame, Miller is probably where she belongs today--and where Rove, and maybe Bush himself, ought to be.

For other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .