IT'S MILLER TIME: Slate's Jack Shafer continues to excoriate the New York Times' Judith Miller for her coverage of intelligence reports on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, I'm a little concerned that we haven't found these weapons yet (I think we will eventually) but I don't think this is cause to be overly hard on Miller. Let me explain.
Shafer makes a big deal of the fact that Miller and the Times unquestioningly reported the findings of intelligence sources, perhaps inadvertently allowing themselves to be "spun" by sinister forces who wanted a war in Iraq at any cost. Presumably, Shafer and other critics would want Miller to use some other sources that might cast reasonable doubt on what's being fed to U.S. intelligence agencies. But the key question is, what would these alternative sources be? Intelligence agencies in other countries? Some apparatchik from Saddam Hussein's regime? Scott Ritter? An "independent" body such as the U.N.? International A.N.S.W.E.R.?
And therein lies the rub. How much can you trust your sources for a blockbuster story when they're basically the only ones you have? And in our current hypermedia environment, would you really expect a newspaper to hold such a story until some alternative sources could be found?
