Mitch Albom vs. Judy Miller: on a scale of one to evil, how many Kissingers?
English comedian Eddie Izzard on the scale of the crime and relative morality:
I think, you know, we think if—if somebody kills someone, that’s murder, you go to prison. You kill 10 people, you go to Texas, they hit you with a brick, that’s what they do. Twenty people, you go to a hospital, they look through a small window at you forever. And over that, we can’t deal with it, you know? Someone’s killed 100,000 people. We’re almost going, “…Well done! You killed 100,000 people? Ahhh. You must get up very early in the morning.”
Along those lines, we offer you the following comparison:
Mitch Albom vs. Judith Miller**
Mitch Albom cites the presence of two basketball players at a game. His source: the players themselves, who never ended up going. His story runs as if they were there.
Judy Miller cites the presence of WMDs in Iraq. Her source: Chalabi and administration lackeys, who never ended up finding the weapons. Her story runs as if the WMDs were there.
Reports indicate that Albom will probably get fired.
Miller: conspiciously not fired, conspicuously not fingered for the bad reporting and later conspicuously transformed into a First Amendment martyr.
The moral of the story: if you’re going to make a big journalistic fuck-up and get away with it, make sure it’s on a gargantuan scale, and that lots of people die. Make sure the crime is big enough that it’s incomprehensible to normal people. Really do the job right. Then after all that hard work, you can go off and enjoy yourself, start your own consulting firm, etc.
** Ah, yes. Judy Miller. Again. We’ll stop when she owns up. Or when the Times owns up. Which means that we expect to be doing this indefinitely. Besides, Jack Shafer probably needs a vacation.
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