"He was most effective picking apart the three reporters whose recollections contradict Libby's. He suggested that Tim Russert had the faulty memory. The host of Meet the Press says he didn't tell Libby about Wilson's wife because he didn't know about her status as a CIA employee, but Wells argued that Russert may have been in a position to have known. David Gregory, the NBC White House reporter who works with Russert, had been told by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Wells argued that Gregory or his colleague Andrea Mitchell, who also claimed to know, would have passed this information on to Russert before he had his conversation with Libby.
"Wells pointed out that Matt Cooper, my former Time colleague, had extensive notes about his interview with Karl Rove, who passed along the information about Wilson's wife, but had no record of Libby's secondary role in confirming that information. To discredit Judith Miller, Wells relied on the former New York Times reporter's own testimony, in which she repeatedly referred to her bad memory, tendency to conflate events, and fuzziness about details."
The question looming over this for journalists is how their testimony will affect their credibility as reporters. One could argue that Judith Miller's credibility as a journalist was toast long before the indictment came down. What is most disconcerting, especially if you were one of her editors at the New York Times is this statement: "Wells relied on the former New York Times reporter's own testimony, in which she repeatedly referred to her bad memory, tendency to conflate events, and fuzziness about details."
On another note, one of Libby's boyhood chums penned this piece for Salon. It's a bit gushing and well-timed to make him seem more human, more vulnerable. At one point, author Nick Bromell likens Libby and the tragedy he now faces to that of Isabel Archer in Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady."
But it was hard not to pause at this remark:
"Always the model student without a single demerit to blot his report card, he suddenly finds himself an accused felon. While the men who benefited from his desire to serve them are still at their desks and phones across the Potomac River, Scooter is looking in the mirror, knotting his tie, and preparing himself for another day in court. It's understandable that he would regard himself as a victim of his superiors. He is one. But it's also telling that the villain his lawyers point toward is Karl Rove, not the master himself, Dick Cheney. Betrayed or not, Scooter's loyalty endures."
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