A lot of people got the Iraq War all wrong…but no one got it wronger than Judith Miller, who was then reporting for The New York Times. When folks tell me the Times is a Liberal paper, I say, "At times, sure…but they couldn't have been more in the tank for the Bush Adminstration's war cries if they'd let Dick Cheney ghost-write their front page." Via Judith Miller's reporting, he almost did.
Ms. Miller has a new Wall Street Journal article out defending herself. She can't defend what she wrote as true but there seems to be this new standard being sold, at least in reference to Iraq: We can't fault people in positions of responsibility if they made mistakes — even if those mistakes cost thousands of lives and billions of bucks — if they were just wrong. If they lied, that's different. But if they were just wrong and they believed what they said was so, it's just a big Oops! No one to blame.
It's like if your doctor amputated your right leg and it turned out later that your leg was fine and he was looking at someone else's x-rays. It's an honest error. You can't possibly fault anyone for that.
Anyway, I'm not suggesting you read Ms. Miller's self-vindication but if you do, also read Simon Maloy's rebuttal to it. He has this odd idea that she's still not dealing in the truth.