Thank You, Mr. President

A hearty "thank you" to our president for proving again that we have (at least) two systems of justice in this country, one for everybody else and one for cronies of our president.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will now serve less time in jail than Judith Miller, who was incarcerated for (unwisely, in retrospect) refusing to testify in his case.

Since I hate to write about stuff that half the galaxy is dwelling on, I won't waste much time on this except to speculate on the following:

• If the sentencing guidelines under which Scooty was stentenced are "excessive" -- this is, after all, an assault on the guidelines as much as anything else -- aren't they "excessive" for everyone else?
• How about a parole, Mr. President?

The media coverage assumes that the commutation is all that is going to happen. I don't read the president's statement that way. The commutation strikes me as an interim action, to be followed by a pardon if and when Libby's appeal is denied.

UPDATE: The president today refused to rule out the possibility of a pardon, which means it's gonna happen.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

MORE ON MILLER: Sorry. I know that a lot of people are coming to this blog from my website, and want to read about the Mafia or Wall Street. Problem is, this Miller case bugs me.

I liked an exchange in Romenesko between the Los Angeles Times' op-ed page editor, Nick Goldberg, and Bill Keller of the NY Times. Goldberg offered Judy Miller the opportunity to respond to a column in his paper. Keller responded: "Sadly, Judy is not on a fellowship at some writers' colony. She is in JAIL. She is sleeping on a foam mattress on the floor, and her communications are, shall we say, constrained."

That's for sure. Anyone who has ever had to communicate with a federal prisoner can attest to that. There's something about being in a prison that is, shall we say, confining.

THE FITZGERALD BRIEF: I just read the brief filed by Patrick Fitzgerald in Judith Miller's unsuccessful bid to remain free, and I found something in it that is particularly unfortunate.

Journalists are a vexacious group, and we rarely agree on much of anything. Unfortunately, that has come back to haunt Miller. Fitzgerald contends that "a number of journalists, First Amendment scholars and opinion leaders flatly disagree with the position Miller is taking at the behest of the New York Times." He goes on to cite Norman Pearlstine's controversial decision to hand over Matt Cooper's notes.

Fitzgerald highlights the following from Columbia Journalism Review:

Though reluctant to come out and say so publicly, it is clear that many reporters and press advocates are upset that the Times has allowed the Plame case to develop into a potential seminal test of the reporter’s privilege.

The author of this article, Doug McCollam, objects to the way his article was used by Fitzgerald. He explains that "most journalists I spoke with didn't so much disagree with Miller's privilege claim as thought that the facts in the Plame case were unfavorable and unlikely to result in a legal victory for journalism (this proved correct). Given the unfavorable terrain, they thought it wiser for Miller and the Times to try and work something out with Fitzgerald rather than risk establishing a bad precedent on reporter's privilege."

He's right. It was not a great case for a number of reasons, and it's a shame the Times couldn't have figured out a way of resolving it. Fitzgerald has my permission to stick the preceding sentence into one of his briefs, but only if he includes the following sentence, which I used on my website: "The special prosecutor who is handling this case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has acted like a damn fool."

MY TAKE ON JUDITH MILLER: I posted a letter on Romenesko's web site concerning the politically motivated attacks that have been launched against Miller. I've duplicated it below:


I'm disgusted by the politically motivated attacks on Judith Miller. One of the worst was the Los Angeles Times column by Rosa Brooks ("The Judith Miller Hug-Fest"), posted on [the Romenesko] website. Miller's alleged journalistic shortcomings have absolutely no bearing on her current predicament.

Brooks distorts the journalistic issue here. She says: "If a source with a clear political motivation passes along classified information that has no value for public debate but would endanger the career, and possibly the life, of a covert agent, is a journalist ethically permitted to 'out' the no-good sneak? You bet."

That is not what happened. A source (possibly Miller's source, possibly not) -- passed along information to a third party (Robert Novak). Miller was not "used" by anybody, because she did not write an article. Miller thus has every right to resist becoming an arm of law enforcement.

There can be no investigative journalism if sources were to believe that journalists can be hauled before a grand jury at any moment, and forced to reveal their identity.Brooks says, "there should be no obligation to go to jail to cover for a sleazeball."

Maybe in Brooks' world every source is a member of the Polo Club or the College of Cardinals. Not in mine.If reporters were to decide that the confidentiality of "sleazeballs" is not worth protecting, a lot of good sources are not going to come forward and a lot of good stories are not going to be written.