The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

Newsweek's Christopher Dickey weighs in on the Judith Miller story, at once running her down and rebuking her critics (focus on other media ills, he tells his colleagues, such as "persistent intimidation from right-wing ideologues"). He says she's great at getting "access" to powerful figures and taking copious notes; she just can't process them or label them properly. Once when he was traveling with her abroad he compared notes with her after they had both interviewed the same subject. He discovered that in her notes she had confused his questions for the subject of the interview's answers. But while Dickey basically says Miller can't think, he does credit her with a certain craftiness. She bragged to him on their travels that she never "breaks a sweat."