London Calling: Bye-bye Judith Miller. Could You Take Tom Friedman With You?

At least Judith Miller had the decency to wait a while before making it official, and going public with her relationship with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

To me, this most recent chapter of the Miller story has the tawdry feel of one of those celebrity break-ups where everyone knows that the reason she left her mate (the NYT) was because she was having an affair (with the neo-cons).

But rather than be honest and admit that and move right in with her new lover, Miller waited for a few months to pass, enough time to convince the gullible that maybe this is a relationship that started after her departure from the Times.

A little bit like Brad, Jennifer and Angelina.

At the Manhattan Institute, Miller says "I hope to continue writing about how best to enhance national security and public safety."

Head for the hills. The last time she wrote about those things, for the Times, she helped start a war.

We should all be grateful that the institute's publication, City Journal, only comes out four times a year. That, and its relatively small circulation, ought to limit the damage Ms. Miller can do in her new position.

And here's hoping that Judith and her friends at the M.I. have saved some space in their bed, and perhaps a pillow or two, for Thomas Friedman.

Because Ms. Miller and her former NYT colleague Mr. Friedman have a lot in common. And I'm not talking Pulitzers.

Much has been written about the sorry performance of the Washington press corps post 911 and pre-Iraq War. Reporters and pundits in DC have been accused of everything from naiveté to complicity, as well as succumbing to intimidation and jingoism.

It would be easy, but wrong, to lump all of them into the same category.

However, two people who certainly ought to be put in the same boat and never allowed near a keyboard again (restraining order, anyone?) are Miller and Friedman.

What sets these two hawks apart is that, unlike most of the stenographers and scared rabbits who were covering the White House and the Pentagon pre-Iraq, Miller and Friedman had spent considerable time in the Middle East.

Simply put, they knew better.

Judith Miller first traveled to the region as a college student, spending time in Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. In 1983, she was assigned to Cairo for the NYT and spent four years reporting across North Africa and the Middle East. She eventually wrote two books on the region.

Thomas Friedman's first posting in the Middle East was in Beirut, for UPI, in 1981. He was then based in Lebanon and Israel, for the NYT, from 1982 to 1988. He wrote a book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, which was well received.

The quality of their respective work overseas resulted in Friedman's elevation to a NYT op-ed columnist position, and in Miller landing a senior role in the Times' Washington bureau.

So, come 2002, and the Bush administration's sales pitch on the Iraq War, unlike most of the DC press corps, which had never been based abroad, Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman would have been equipped with the knowledge required to shoot down the administration's lies.

They would have known, for instance, that the idea of a collaboration between the fundamentalist al Qaeda and the relatively secular Saddam Hussein was preposterous.

They would have known that in post-Saddam Iraq, given the country's ethnic make-up, we'd be looking at Yugoslavia, the Sequel.

They would have known that the Shiite majority would rise up against their former Sunni rulers and inevitably tilt toward Shiite-ruled Iran, the way it tried to do in 1991.

In short, they would have known all the things that Bush Sr. took into account when he wisely decided not to carry on to Baghdad in '91 (as was recently and helpfully articulated by Dick Cheney in that 1994 C-SPAN clip).

Yet Miller's reporting and Friedman's opining helped the Bush administration take the US to war.

Compare, for a moment, Miller and Friedman's CVs with some of the other prominent hawkish voices in US journalism.

William Kristol was born into the neo-con movement that his father helped found. He has never been based overseas.

Fred Barnes arrived in DC in 1979 and hasn't wandered much past Baltimore since.

Brit Hume was born in DC, ventured all the way to Virginia for university, then went back to Washington where he has spent the rest of his career.

None of them has been based abroad; none has the credentials to claim expertise in foreign policy.

I'm not suggesting that these right-wing pundits, had they actually been assigned to the Middle East and got to know the region, would have been urging caution on Iraq. They are ideologues. And there will always be ideologues, on both the right and the left.

However, what is needed in the news media at critical times, and what American journalism has traditionally provided, is balance.

That comes from other voices. In foreign policy matters, those voices tend to belong to journalists who have had experience overseas. The knowledge and perspective they gain abroad often counter the urges of the political right, and put the brakes on foreign misadventures before they happen.

But rather than report on what they knew and put the lie to the Bush administration's arguments on Iraq, Miller and Friedman gave the White House, and probably the NYT, what they wanted: support for the war.

In their case, it wasn't ignorance or, as some contrite editors have since put it, "getting the story wrong."

They knew what was happening and still went with the dominant, White House narrative.

That is not to say that the many cheerleaders who populated the Washington press corps in 2002-03 should be pardoned for their supine approach to their jobs, and the devastating consequences that followed.

Just because most of them had limited experience outside the Beltway, and little knowledge of the region that would bear the brunt of the war they helped allow to happen, does not excuse them.

Ignorance of the facts is no more valid a defense in journalism, than ignorance of the law is in court, because the facts are out there. They're available.

But a lot of those reporters can, at least, cop the ignorance plea.

Miller and Friedman cannot. They knew better. They set their knowledge aside, along with their consciences, and jumped on the White House's Iraq bandwagon.

And a bandwagon, as the people of Iraq and the families of American soldiers have since learned, is no place for a journalist to be.

Comments

[MordechaiShiblikov]

Journalistic street walkers like Miller and Friedman are now a penny a dozen in the MSM. They ARE the MSM. We are all waiting to find out how Uncle Sam is going to take it up the backside once the assault on Iran begins. Wanna party?

[frank67]

The CORPORATE press is composed of stenographers - Miller, Friedman, Will, and the rest of the creeps. None of them will "Rock the boat" or "Bite that hand that feeds them." Otherwise, they'll lose the big paychecks! Just don't call them REPORTERS!

[StillAmused]

Notwithstanding all the splitting of hairs between Friedman's and Miller's 'consistency', one fact remains: they were both ardent cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq.

Indeed, an argument can be made that Friedman is the MORE odious of the two, having occasionally 'hedged his bets' like an insecure provocateur — while nonetheless continuing to beat the drum. Give Miller credit... like any good prostitute, she delivered the goods without flinching.

Throw 'em both under the bus.

[Topsnoop]

What the author is overlooking is that whether they've been to the Middle East or not, all those fancy DC reporters are supposed to have working bullshit detectors.

It's obvious to me -- with about 40 years of big-city reporting behind me -- that they were all dozing in the station as the train departed.

Given Bush's demonstrated inability to tell the truth even when it will benefit him, those hot shot reporters should have raising cain in opposition to the plan. They have NO excuse and should be ashamed.

John Painter Jr.
[e-mail]

P.S. Oh yeah. I'm not a far west hayseed, either. Been in the West Wing and on AF One.

[Raster]

Miller and Friedman descended to the level of ... disgusting.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Comparing Friedman to Judith Miller is a little unfair. While I disagree w/ many of his prognostcations, to my knowledge Friedman has not KNOWINGLY used false intelligence as sourcing for stories nor has he deliberately allowed himself to be used as a conduit for falsified propaganda distribution in order to advance his career.

In my opinion Miller was guilty of both those things and more......­..tm

[TommyMcCarthy]

P.S. Again my opinion only (someday we'll know for sure, perhaps when Bob Woodward tells us...heh, heh). Miller's willingness to sit in jail had little to do with protecting a "source" and much to do with covering her own ass.

Miller, hoping to be viewed as a "hero of the first amendment", knew that she was FINISHED as a serious journalist if her role as an active participant in the administration's propaganda machine were to come out.

It DID, and she IS, and good riddance!!

It's apples and oranges to compare her w/ Friedman, who was merely voiciferously, long-windedly, and repetitively WRONG on the war; like many, many others....­.....tm

[pgg804]

I believe Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman are both intelligent people capable of critical thinking. They don't have to take cues from others about what or how to write on a particular subject. President Bush has confused Slovakia with Slovenia and the other day, Austria with Australia. These might have been honest mistakes, but they might not be. I think the President and those surrounding him are influenced by the media as much as the media is influenced by them. I also don't think whether Miller and Friedman are liberal or conservative is particularly relavent. As I recall, the entire media in this country was pro-war in varying degrees. I think they were for this war for there own personal reasons.

[Grulg]

Friedman is the one that disappointed me the most. Here's a guy who really given his track record, shoulda Known Better. But does he come out and say he was wrong? Well--not really.

And he's already become such a punchline for the dreaded 'the next 6 months will be a landmark important time in the ________(name mid-east topic of choice')'. Sure Tommy Boy.

You say the world's flat? Your thinking is flat. Back to Beirut, son.

[leftLibertarian]

Never forget, Mr. Reasonable Friedman, was a Iraq War Pimp!

[Despry]

I disagreed with Friedman's support of the war. However, when liberals call him a Neocon and Bush apologist, it's as dishonest (or ignorant) as when conservatives claim that all liberals "hate America."

Yes, he supported regime change and nation building. But the quotes below show, early on, his clear differences with the Neocon and Bush/Chene­y/Rumsfeld positions.

February 19, 2003

"...I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that...You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie."

March 5, 2003

"...Indeed­, our own Congress is being asked to suspend belief yet again and accept Mr. Bush's promises that this war, soaring oil prices and a weakening dollar won't bust the budget even more than his tax cuts already have. And when the respected U.S. Army chief of staff wisely cautioned that stabilizing Iraq could require some 200,000 troops, the Bush team told us to ignore him, too. Troubling.­..."

March 12, 2003

"....Inste­ad, the president has hyped the threat and asserted that this is a war of no choice, then combined it all with his worst pre-9/11 business as usual: budget-busting tax cuts, indifference to global environmental concerns, a gas-guzzling energy policy, neglect of the Arab-Israeli peace process and bullying diplomacy.­..."

May 11, 2003

"......He (Dubya) will have to halt the attacks on Colin Powell from the Pentagon and make clear, for once, that he stands behind his secretary of state; tell both the Christian right and the Likud-run Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that he is not going to let them block his path by their support for the lunatic Israeli settler movement..­..."

[Honest George]

As bad as bush and his bunch screwed this war up one of the reasons given by bush was He tried to kill my dad. What a loser

[Justathought]

Hey, Hey, this is what people duped look like.
They venture into unknown territory, spew everything that they want to be real and
when they find it implausible, refuse to change
their minds.

The rest of us pay for their patheitic behaviour.

[Economike]

Judith Miller must have known that Sadam and Al Queda were not connected. So she was obviously spreading a lie to further the neo con agenda. What she probably believed was that we could use Iraq as a beachhead to spread democracy (create a puppet state for the oil). Obviously it is not working.

[GerryDantone]

A slight correction: Mr. Gizbert calls for "balance" in journalism. I disagree - I want objectivity.

There is a difference, of course. Balancing between the absurd and the probable is NOT good journalism. When the Administration or others makes outrageous claims, good journalism is calling those claims "outrageou­s." When journalists attempt to balance a story between the likely and unlikely, they are doing the unlikely a favor and the likely a disservice.

There is absolutely no reason to assume that the objective truth or reality of a situation is some average between two sides, althought it might be. The objective reality of a situation may be entirely in accordance with one side of the argument - and it must be reported that way. If there is no such thing as objectivity, or reality in the sense that some versions of reality are more likely than others, we can never know anything.

Try crossing a busy street assuming that there is no probable reality.

[JimR]

Objectivity is a myth... every human being has experiences and beliefs which sway his or her views and opinions. The busy street analogy doesn't really work, because the truths sought in journalism are usually much more abstract.

That's why balance is a better measure. Not simply taking "this side says this" and "that side says this." Balance with actual reporting involved.

So it would be more like "this said says this, but these parts just aren't true" and "that side says this, but these parts just arent' true."

[cognate]

Like all mainstream media, the NYT, WSJ and WP are doing all they can to deny or obfuscate legitimate Moslem grievances at the hands of Western imperialism. This includes the borders drawn in the Middle East after WWI which served British, French and now American imperial interests. Later the West established Israel in Palestine which has led to endless war between Israel and all of its neighbors.

Is it legitimate to ask why should the Palestinians (and Arabs/Moslems in general) be made to pay for Europe's sins against the Jews?

Let's face it: Islamic fundamentalist militance, including terrorism, is nothing more than a reaction to us trying to stick it to them.