Plame The Messenger?

I saw these links over on Boston Phoenix media critic Mark Jurkowitz's Media Log blog, and also based the title of this post on his. Jurkowitz brings up the continuing questions surrounding the Valerie Plame affair as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, ostensibly, continues to investigate who leaked her name to columnist Robert Novak. The question I always had was why, if Novak spoke to the grand jury and offered them enough information that he doesn't face contempt charges, are other journalists going to jail? Wouldn't they only be able to give the same information as Novak apparently did?

Finally hearing what Karl Rove told Time magazine's Matthew Cooper didn't really resolve anything. Plenty of wiggle room for Rove in his statements to Cooper. Rove claims that he heard about Plame's CIA identity from some other media source, but he's not sure who it was. But the big questions revolve around Judith Miller, of The New York Times, who remains in jail for refusing to divulge her source. Apparently, it's a different source than Cooper's. Novak has said he first heard about Plame from some non-Rove source, but he hasn't publically stated who it was.

Many journalists have taken up Miller's cause, saying that the prosecutor is unjustly applying pressure to a journalist who is nobly trying to protect her source. But there are some contrary theories out there, notably from Arianna Huffington, who says that Miller is in jail because the source she is trying to protect is herself.

Huffington outlines a theory that Miller was trying to maintain the last shreds of credibility related to her Iraq stories. Like many other reporters, Miler trumpeted the Bush Administration call to war, complete with credibly reporting the now-discredited links between Iraq and the infamous Niger uranium. Joe Wilson puts out an op-ed piece blasting the White House for repeating these claims that he knew, from personal investigation, to be false. That calls into question her reporting. Huffington lays out the rest of the theory:

So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

All very interesting and compelling, in a conspiracy-theory sort of way. But as Jurkowitz points out, the simpler explanation is usually the correct one. There's no actual evidence at this point to say that Miller leaked the information to the White House or even had the information to give.

For a polar opposite view of Miller, look to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The committee organized a visit to her jail cell with media celebrities, including Tom Brokaw. Miller is perceived as sacrificing herself for the principles of good journalism in this statement. That will remain the accepted view of her situation until and unless any evidence to the contrary surfaces.