The Icon That Wasn’t

There’s so much Judy Miller and Plamegate news out there, we hardly know where to begin.

The lede from Newsweek’s article, though, seems as interesting a place to start as any:

The White House’s handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. His return has created heightened concern among White House officials and their allies that Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments when a federal grand jury that has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent’s identity expires at the end of October. Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, tells NEWSWEEK that, in his last conversations with Fitzgerald, the prosecutor assured Luskin “he has not made any decisions.”

From there, let’s skip over to Greg Mitchell‘s snarky piece that begins with how much the New York Times is sucking at covering itself (and in the process perhaps giving up its reign as The Paper of Record?):

If its recent track record is any guide, The New York Times, later today or tomorrow, will get around to confirming Michael Isikoff‘s Newsweek revelation late Saturday that the missing notes Judith Miller has suddenly found and turned over to the federal prosecutor in the Plame case were located in a notebook in the newspaper’s Washington, D.C. bureau.

And to wrap up, here’s what the London Guardian has to say about our fallen angel:

There are many reasons why Miller has not turned out to be an icon of American press freedom. There is the case itself – an ugly, convoluted story of an intelligence leak that turned journalists into human shields for the government. There is a general environment in which journalists are mistrusted if not despised by the general public. And then there is Miller herself, an intense, driven and prize-winning journalist, but one who arrived at the courtroom steps weighed down by a controversial past.

So what do people think: Will we see the other shoe drop this week? The days are running out for Fitzgerald….

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