Over at HuffPo, Arianna Huffington reports that the Times has assigned reporter Doug Jehl—quite a good reporter, by the way—to investigate the role of Judith Miller, the paper’s currently jailed reporter, in the Valerie Plame case. That doesn’t bode well for Miller. But if Arianna’s right, kudos to the Times for having the guts to investigate its own reporter, who has become a major news story in her own right.

I’ve defended Miller in the past, arguing that despite her erroneous war reporting, we should respect her principled stand on sourcing (ostensibly the reason she’s in jail now).

But more and more, it appears that Miller is keeping quiet because her own role in this matter was not to report a story, but to spread dirt on Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, who had attacked the administration’s efforts to build support for a war; Miller approved of those efforts.

My defense of Judith Miller, I’m sorry to say, is getting harder to sustain.