Finally, somebody writes something that actually matters about the flap involving Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who went to jail to shield a source who - in an attempt at payback - told her a Bush Administration critic's wife (got that?) had once been a CIA operative. That the source, vice-presidential aide Scooter Libby, has now said he released Miller from the obligation to protect his identity with obfuscatory source labelling, kind of proves Patt Morrison's point in the L.A. Times today. Petty Inside-The-Beltway leakers such as Libby are NOT who should be shielded by reporters' rare, but sometimes necessary confidentiality pledges to sources.

It isn't Washington's gotcha gamesters who should get to hide behind reporters' shields and take anonymous potshots at their enemies. The people who deserve that protection are the men and women who honorably blow the whistle on fraud and corruption and then find themselves threatened or fired. People such as the two Border Patrol agents who pointed out security weaknesses, the Medicare actuary who wanted to tell Congress how much the new prescription drug law would really cost, and the Army's top contracting official, who criticized a huge, noncompetitive Halliburton contract.

Oh, and Miller never printed the information about the Bush critic's wife, but a columnist did. And the critic's wife hadn't been an CIA operative for quite some time, so revealing her past role was probably not a security breach or a very effective payback for her husband's criticism of Bush. And yet, whether the vice-presidential aide was ordered by certain higher-ups, such as V.P. Dick Cheney or presidential advisor Karl Rove to leak about the Bush critic's wife's past CIA role is a very, very, very big deal, and a grand jury is investigating who told who to do what when, and an indictment may be coming tommorow, or next week, or never; and while an indictment is not a conviction, there are people in Seattle who run a weekly alternative alternative (that's not a typo) newspaper full of sex ads and vituperative left-wing bile who are breathlessly hyping their "indictment party" in their wholly mediocre blog which lacks real, stand-alone permalinks (you'll have to scroll down to the Oct. 25 item titled "Indictment Night Party," here).

Now do you understand? Oh, and if I messed something up in the above, absurd-but-true fact parade, well sorry, it's because I just don't give a f*** about this whole f****** thing except to make clear how little I give a f*** about it. Oh, and that I agree with Patt Morrison, today.

P.S. Aspiring journalists, if you wish to work at an alternative alternative weekly, you'll need to be able to write white-hot screeds just like this, only no asteriks allowed when you cuss.

TECHNORATI TAGS: JUDY MILLER, DYSPEPSIA

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 26, 2005 02:40 PM