Judy Miller v Byron Calame & Jill Abramson

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan's link, I read the email from Judy Miller on Byron Calame's NY Times blog. She says that she told the truth, and Andrew Sullivan says that means she is calling Jill Abramson a liar (though all she really says is that they remember events differently).

I think she's calling Calame an unfair reporter.Here's an excerpt from Miller's letter:

I fail to see why I am responsible for my editors’ alleged failure to do some “digging” into my confidential sources and the notebooks. From the start, the legal team that the Times provided me knew who my source was and had access to my notes. I never refused to answer questions or provide any information they requested. No one indicated they had doubts about the stand I took to go to jail.

Your essay clearly implies that the Times and I did something wrong in waging a battle that we did not choose. I strongly disagree. What did I do wrong? Your essay does not say. You may disapprove of my earlier reporting on Weapons of Mass Destruction. But what did the delayed publication of the editor’s note on that reporting have to do with the
decision I made over a year later, which the paper fully supported, to protect our confidential sources? I remain proud of my decision to go to jail rather than reveal the identity of a source to whom I had pledged confidentiality, even if he happened to work for the Bush White House.

The Times asked me to assume a low profile in this controversy. I told everyone that I had no intention of airing internal editorial policy disputes and disagreements at the paper, as a matter of principle and loyalty to those who stood by me during this ordeal. Others have chosen a different path, ironically becoming “confidential sources” themselves.

You never bothered to mention in your essay my decision to spend 85 days in jail to honor the pledge I made. I’m saddened that you, like so many others, have blurred the core issue of that stand and I am stunned that you refused to post my answers to issues we had discussed on your web site at the critical moment that Times readers were forming their opinions.

Judith Miller

I think Miller appears to be right. Unlike Andrew Sullivan, I don't think she's digging a deeper hole for herself, even if she gets fired by her editors. All the evidence points to Times editors digging holes for themselves, due to political pressure...