Maureen Dowd on Judith Miller [CIA leak, WMD promotion, Chalabi defender ...] ... Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House

THE NEWS BLOG: "Let me put it this way, if anyone liked me like MoDo says she likes Miller, well, I'd have to check to see if I owed them child support.

" I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.

The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism [involuntary orientation by an organism or one of its parts that involves turning or curving by movement ... broadly : a natural inclination] toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.

She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."

Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, ..................

Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.

................... This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.

................... But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.

Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands. "

Ok, after calling her a drama queen and a whore, tropism being a fancy word for women who likes powerful men and fucks them, she then goes after her bosses for not supervising her and letting her hurt the paper.

Then she suggests that Miller's jail stint had other motives.

Then, finally, calls for her to be fired.

And Gail Collins might as well have cosigned it.

Why? It ran on the op-ed page, she's her nominal boss.

This is call putting your business in the street. This is the consensus opinion of the Times staff, except for the open hatred some folks had for Miller. ...