C'est La Vie

Judy's dirty hands come to the forefront again. Now telling us she regrets being so careful about her reporting, she reveals that sources informed her before July 4, 2001 that an attack on America or a major American target was planned by Al Qaida. One would think that a threat of death or destruction like this would cause a major investigative reporter of her caliber to – you know, do something, like report the story to the American public. This wasn't the typical cat stuck in the tree incident – it seemed a trite more significant. Why didn't she go all out on this?

....It was going to be a large, well-coordinated attack. Because of the July 4 holiday, this was an ideal opportunistic target and date for Al Qaida.

My sources also told me at that time that there had been a lot of chatter overheard -- I didn't know specifically what that meant -- but a lot of talk about an impending attack at one time or another. And the intelligence community seemed to believe that at least a part of the attack was going to come on July 4.

"Everyone in Washington was very spun-up in the CT world at that time. I think everybody knew that an attack was coming -- everyone who followed this. But you know you can only 'cry wolf' within a newspaper or, I imagine, within an intelligence agency, so many times before people start saying there he goes -- or there she goes – again!

"You know, sometimes in journalism you regret the stories you do, but most of the time you regret the ones that you didn't do."

Miller's transgressions have been well documented regarding the WMD fiasco and to be fair to her, she was only another piece of the “what if” puzzle that, if placed properly, may have been able to help create a different outcome. The rap on her now is the seeming indifference in attitude, the seeming “oh well” of her tone. Appearing to separate herself from the history she was involved in and dismissing the possibility that a report from her may have had even the slightest chance of preventing thousands of deaths, is an indicator of a sadly cavalier character.

Let them eat cake?
Posted on The Human Stain