Plame Update

Ah, the stories begin to unravel. "Chatter" (as the Pentagon would put it) now seems to indicate that, as I suspected, Miller is claiming the protection of the first ammendment so that she doesn't have to use the fifth. To put that in, you know, english, I turn to Arianna Huffington:

It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

So here we have it. If true (and this is really just Arianna's word at this point) Miller isn't protecting a source - she's protecting herself against a charge that could have her imprisoned for a long, long time. Of course, the First ammendment is so much sexier than the fifth (which has unfortunate associations with both Communists and Ken Lay). I'm personally inclined to believe it, but you'll all have to make up your own minds.