Third Times the Charm
On Sunday, Maureen Dowd used her column to flay Judy Miller (after first going out out of her way to note that she's "always liked Judy Miller").
(Insert standard TimesSelect lack-of-link explanation here.)
Dowd cites the usual reasons, but adds one delicious detail: that as recently as last April, Miller sent her an e-mail defending Ahmad Chalabi, perhaps the world's most unreliable source. For this act of lunatic judgment alone, Miller should be fired.
Clearly, I have no desire to defend Judith Miller. But having said that, I think it's bizarre and probably inappropriate to allow one Times columnist to write a column attacking a Times reporter. (Much as I love to read a "catfight," as the New York Post put it.)
In the process, Dowd can draw on her knowledge of the paper's internal workings, and, because she's a columnist, never has to give Miller a chance to respond. It doesn't feel right. The Times should offer Judy Miller space on the editorial page to answer Dowd. But of course, then the whole thing starts to get silly...which is why the Times shouldn't have allowed Dowd to write about Miller in the first place.
Moreover, while I'm sure that Dowd genuinely believes what she wrote, and that she would never, ever be opportunistic and use the moment of Miller's weakness to pile on, let us not give her points for journalistic courage here.
Real guts would have been writing this column a year ago. Or two years ago. After all, Dowd writes that in the run-up to war, she "worried that [Miller] was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber" of warmongers and their publicists. Perhaps I missed it, but I don't recall her breaking with Miller at the time.
It doesn't take much guts to come out now and say that you always thought Judy Miller was a bad reporter. What'd you do when it counted, Maureen? When you might actually have to pay an internal price at the paper in order to run a column?
A few posters on this blog have mentioned that they don't believe Judith Miller should be given the opportunity to write a book. I think this kind of criticism merits a response, and I'd like to see it addressed in the book that Miller will surely write. Can you imagine how entertaining it would be if she really decides to dish on the internal goings-on at the Times?
Which perhaps puts Dowd's column in another light. Perhaps it's nothing more than a shot across the bow....
