Talk about the elephant in the living room!
David Stout, who is a terrific reporter, writes 14 grafs about Karl Rove’s testimony today and the background of the Plame investigation and, unlike the Washington Post story about Rove’s testimony today, never mentions Judith Miller.
The Times needs to get out of its own way somehow. I proposed one idea: an editorial recusal and the appointment of a special reporter. Helpful readers point out that my idea was not original: the LA Times did something like that on a one-shot basis in covering the scandal of the Staples Center special section, and the Seattle Times has hired a free-lancer to cover its corporate parent’s business dispute over a joint operating agreement with the Post-Intelligencer. Bob Steele’s column describing the Seattle Times arrangement also mentions a Fox affiliate which hired a free-lancer to cover a whistleblower suit filed against it.
Why can’t the New York Times profit form those examples? The Times is too important an institution to shred its own credibility this way.