Judith Miller, newly divorced from her marriage to the New York Times due to incompatible differences, had a lot to say on Larry King last night:
Appearing for a full hour on CNN’s Larry King Live Thursday night, Judith Miller defended herself from criticism for her role in the Plame/CIA leak case and her flawed reporting on WMD in Iraq, but would not discuss Scooter Libby. The former New York Times reporter claimed that she had “never” used Ahmad Chalabi as an anonymous source. She also declared, “I did not use The New York Times to lobby for the Iraq war — it would have been inappropriate.”
Along the way she took some shots at her former New York Times colleague, Maureen Dowd, who recently wrote a column calling Miller the Woman of Mass Destruction.
Unlike some people, Miller said, she holds on to a “quaintâ€? standard that “you don’t trash colleagues, and you don’t trash the institution you’re working for.” Later she said in years past she could not recall “a single columnist who ever attacked a colleague.â€? She also revealed, however, that Dowd had visited her in jail.
She added that Dowd’s attack on her was “painful … I’d always admired her reporting. I was disappointed.” She said she was very discouraged that the Times wouldn’t let her respond to Dowd’s column directly, but said some kind of response will appear in the paper’s Public Editor’s column on Sunday.
And then there are denials that perhaps are true from her perspective but don’t quite fit in with some of the news reports during the Miller controversy that wrote about the feeling among Times staffers:
She also admitted that while she had great respect for most of the people who worked at the newspaper, she did have problems with some “in management.â€? She said she was “saddened by the attacks on me, nobody told me they were coming,â€? adding, “I was never at war with The New York Times.”
Asked what she would do next, Miller emphasized that she would remain in journalism, but hinted that it might be in a position where she can be more open about her opinions. “I’m not retired,� she said at one point.
Again: it’ll be something such as Fox News or the Washington Times — in other words, most likely she’ll be employed by part of the new conservative news media versus the older media which conservatives call “the liberal media” and liberals actually consider somewhat conservative media. AND:
Miller revealed that a book is in the works, and that she even tried to reach her agent, Binky Urban, on Thursday to talk about it after the Wall Street Journal revealed that several publishers might be interested. But Urban could not be reached.
That’s the bottom line. In a major national controversy — translate that into “notoriety” — almost invariably translates into a book deal for one of the players who will make at least six figures for his or her pain.
So add whatever book deal emerges to her reportedly-fat severance package from the New York Times, and a new high-profile position with some news outlet and the fact is this: no one can lose sleep thinking Miller will be on welfare or that she will be silenced.
Working? Yes. Damaged goods? Yes.