Autumn leaves

One of the oddest spectacles in contemporary celebrity journalism took place when New York Times reporter Judith Miller recently showed up on television to celebrate her release from prison. Miller had been jailed for 84 days at the behest of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald due to her refusal to testify in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. Plame is the CIA operative whose cover was blown by Bush administration apparatchiks in an effort to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson; also to warn potential whistleblowers that retribution would be harsh and swift.

Joe Wilson is a career diplomat who bravely defied Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War by sheltering persons the Iraqi dictator had threatened to hang inside the U.S. Embassy. But he'd earned this White House's enmity by publishing a New York Times column on July 6, 2003, basically implying that President Bush's claims about Saddam's attempts to buy African uranium for nuclear weapons were known to be false when he made them.

Wilson had traveled to Africa at the CIA's behest to investigate the charge, subsequently shown to be based upon crudely forged documents. The White House had to admit that Bush should never have made it.

But loyalty to the regime takes precedence over all competing values in this White House--truth, patriotism and honor among them. So Bush staffers leaked anti-Wilson smears to selected courtier journalists (of the kind who gain access to the powerful through flattery and GOP political correctness).

Robert Novak published a column insinuating that Wilson couldn't be a real man because his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, got him the African gig--as if two unpaid weeks in sunny Niger were a luxury junket.

The problem was that Valerie Plame was a covert operative; i.e., a spy. Her job was keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Blowing her cover may have been a federal crime, endangering her life and exposing a crucial intelligence operation.

Professing shock, President Bush vowed swift action against anybody involved. Firing would be the least of it.

The White House issued categorical denials on behalf of political mischief-maker Karl Rove and Vice-president Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby in particular. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, considered an incorruptible bulldog by Justice Department colleagues, was appointed to investigate.

Amid histrionic protests among Washington's journalistic establishment, Fitzgerald persuaded several federal judges that the mystery could not be solved without the testimony of reporters--among them non-partisan professionals like The Washington Post's Walter Pincus. Most negotiated ways of providing information without compromising their professional integrity.

Meanwhile, it's become known that White House denials of Rove and Libby's involvement in "outing" Plame to the press have become inoperative--whether criminally or not remains to be seen. Bush's vow to punish them has been forgotten.

Then there's Judith Miller, the flamboyant New York Times reporter and neo-conservative pin-up girl whose discredited "exclusives" on Iraq's imaginary nuclear weapons helped drive the nation to war. Miller said waivers provided by her sources--she never wrote a story about Plame--were the result of prosecutorial strong-arming, hence worthless to so fierce an advocate of First Amendment press freedom as herself.

Accompanied by a series of passionate New York Times editorials comparing her to everybody from Martin Luther King Jr. to Gandhi, Miller went to jail, vowing to stay as long as necessary to preserve our liberty. She became the neo-con Susan McDougal, the Whitewater holdout who said Kenneth Starr wanted her to lie about the Clintons.

Until last week, that is, when Miller's source "Scooter" Libby supposedly persuaded her it was OK to sing. Except Libby's lawyer insists he gave her attorneys exactly the same information a year ago. Lawyerly scuffling broke out, but it seemed clear that Miller had simply reconfigured her lofty principles--possibly to avoid criminal contempt charges.

Then somebody leaked Scooter's letter to the press. It said Miller's truthful testimony would actually benefit him, helpfully reminding her of the legal tightrope her source is walking: "[A]s I am sure will not be news to you, the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me, or knew about her before our call."

See, if Scooter didn't know Plame was a secret agent, "outing" her may not be a crime. It's the incompetence defense. The letter also implicitly promised Miller big scoops on, get this, Iran's nuclear weapons, and closed with a poetic line reminding her that "[O]ut West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

Ponder that metaphor for a moment.

Here's all I know: If Hillary Clinton had written Susan McDougal a letter like that, the Washington press would have exploded with indignation. The TV talking heads would be predicting indictments, and the phrase of the week would be "criminal conspiracy."

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a national magazine award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at genelyons@sbcglobal.net.