I agree with one point in O'Hehir's article. Heather Havrilesky is terrific and does have "more to say about the state of contemporary America than your average dozen earnest lefty bloggers." Or more than most anybody writing about popular culture today, and she says it more entertainingly. But he is wrong about Judy Miller. Miller is not in jail because she's been a hack whose bad reporting helped lead us to war, and whatever schadenfreude Salon readers feel is beside the point.

Miller's case is in no way parallel to Skokie. In Skokie what was being defended was a fundamental explicit right, the right to peaceably assemble which is clearly set forth in the constitution. No such right is at stake here. Miller is not in jail for anything she published or said, no matter how stupid or wrong. Were that the case, I, and I am sure many of her critics, would defend her fundamental first amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press. She is in jail for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigation of a serious crime involving national security. Don't believe me? Read the Appeals Court judges' decisions.

Reporter's privilege, like any privilege, at times must yield to more vital concerns. The idea that this somehow muzzles the press is without merit. In fact it would be more dangerous to give reporters a total shield from revealing sources, as is proposed in a very bad new law, S 342 and HR 581, which states "the right to keep the source's name can not be overcome by the subpoenaing party under any circumstances." This would open up a very wide door for government operatives with bad intentions to give false information to unscrupulous reporters who could then publish any fraudulent, treasonous, libelous or defamatory and politically motivated trash they like without fear of either having to back themselves up or face any consequences. That would do more harm to the public, and to a free press and its credibility than putting Ms. Miller in jail. Judy is not upholding the law, she is putting herself above it.

I can't understand why, in three separate articles, Salon cannot grasp this simple idea.

-- Morris Sheppard

Thank God someone is saying that we need to support Judith Miller in principle if not in substance. I am frequently ashamed that so many people I would normally consider allies are willing to sell out liberal and democratic principles when it seems convenient and doesn't affect the people they cherish the most in our society. Kudos to Andrew O'Hehir and his incisive analysis of this complex issue.

-- Normand Theriault

Miller acted as an agent for the government in her articles promoting a war with Iraq. Now she argues that she should not be compelled to act as an agent of the government by naming her source in the Plame-Rove affair. It seems to me that she lost the moral ground needed to object to the latter when she engaged in the former. In this sense, her case does appear to be different from other prior similar cases: As far as I know, no other reporter who chose not to reveal a source on the grounds that she should not be compelled to act as an agent of the government had previously done exactly that.

The solution seems obvious: Reporters need to never do what Miller did in her Iraq propaganda pieces. Then if the government should try to force them to reveal their sources, they can seek protection from a principle they actually believe in, rather than one they merely try to hide behind when it's convenient.

Finally, you quote a reader's letter, which states: "Do we want the penalty for bad reporting, or at the least, falling victim to deceptive sources, to be not a correction or professional censure, but prison?"

Let's first note the obvious fact: Miller still has her job. Why hasn't the Times fired her for (at best) gross incompetence? And isn't the fact that she hasn't been fired proof that "professional censure" isn't a viable option for rotten reporters?

Beyond that, though, people in other professions do go to jail for being lousy at their jobs. A doctor who ignores professional standards when treating a patient, or an engineer who does likewise when building a bridge, may very well go to jail if their incompetence hurts or kills others. Miller's incompetence in her Iraq pieces has contributed directly to thousands of deaths. Why shouldn't she face jail for that, if a doctor or engineer could do so for comparable failures?

The flaw here is that she wasn't jailed for her Iraq pieces, but for her Plame-Rove work. Perhaps justice would truly be served if she were to be released from jail without telling the prosecutor what he wants to know, after which she would be flown to Baghdad, where she could face the same hazards of war that are faced by the troops sent there in large measure because of her own writing. In the meantime, I don't see how she can expect both to prostitute and seek protection from the same principle.

-- Bill Wolfe

Although I believe that Andrew O'Hehir was right to excoriate those who celebrated Judith Miller's imprisonment, I can't help but feel that the main point is being missed. First Amendment rights are not absolute, and the court was 100 percent within its power to hold her in contempt.

A free press is vital in any democratic society, but when a journalist has a source that may be part of a serious crime, the court system must have the ability to investigate that information. Bob Woodward kept Deep Throat's identity hidden, and someone in a similar position today could still do the same, since the source's identity has little importance to the investigation of the crime. Judith Miller's source, whoever it may be, is intricately connected to the tangled web of the Plame affair, and investigators need access to the source to properly serve justice.

-- Rich Cassara

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