Miller's Crossing

Yesterday's four-page autopsy of the Judith Miller affair was odd. It felt like a hit piece from the very beginning with an anecdote about one of the Times star reporters getting her facts wrong. The first paragraph has Miller misspelling Joe Wilson's wife's name as Valerie Flame. Nice anecdote but it subtly shows that some in the Times newsroom would like Miller gone, thank you very much.

The piece seems thorough in nailing Dick Cheney's chief of staff as the official leaker of Plame's identity but that Miller and others were told she was an analyst and not an operative. If that's true, then no crime was committed. Just DC gossip.

But what of Miller -- does she leave the Times? They certainly cannot fire her even though her reporting on WMD was erroneous and boosterish. She went to jail for 87 days, for goodness sakes. As much as they'd like to dump her, that's no way to treat a lady.