NY Times: Whoopsie! Some people have proclaimed the Howell Raines era to be the biggest embarassment to the newspaper. When the Jason Blair matter broke so many on the Right, especially those that had had their asses booted by the Times in the past (Sully the Stupifying) just could not stop writing about it. The disgusting manner in which they used it to bash affirmative action was odious indeed. Well, the real scandal, the one that the group at "The Coroner" and Prince Vainglorious cheered on like the war-whores they are at the time -is now breaking. I have a feeling, like the Jack Kelly matter at USA Today, the critique will be rather muted. And the fact that a born-again would lie like a rug over a decade of proclaimed James Bond like-hijinks was barely touched upon because it diminished their need to implicitly bash African-Americans under the terms "Affirmative Action". From Slate

Sources inside and close to the New York Times say that the newspaper is preparing an "Editors' Note" that will reassess its pre-Iraq War coverage, particularly its coverage of weapons of mass destruction. The note is said to address the reporting failures of Times staffers, including Judith Miller, and could be published as early as tomorrow (Wednesday, May 26)... Miller's work on WMD in the Times deserves special scrutiny because so many of her sensational stories never panned out—from a December 2001 piece about now-discredited Iraqi defector Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, who claimed inside knowledge about a score of Iraq WMD programs and storage facilities, to a December 2002 scoop about a possible Russia-Iraq smallpox collaboration, to a January 2003 eve-of-war piece reiterating the defectors' stories of Iraqi WMD. Miller's credulous reporting turned absolutely hyperbolic when she joined the search for WMD on the ground in Iraq, embedding with the U.S. military's Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha. In an April 21, 2003, piece, Miller claimed that an Iraqi scientist had led the military to a cache of precursor compounds for a banned "toxic agent." She told The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer the next day that the scientist was more than a "smoking gun" in the WMD search, he was the "silver bullet." But by July 2003, still no WMD had been found in Iraq. Instead of blaming the defectors and inside sources who had led her astray, Miller put the onus on the poor logistics of the weapons search! (See this "The Scoops That Melted," a "Press Box" from last year for more details.)

Jayson Blair lied about some interviews. Jack Miller lied about seeing people killed and shaped policy. All were small potatoes to Judy Miller using the NY Times like Pulitzer and Hearst used their papers a century ago -- to take us into a war that need not have been fought. Right-wing clowns beat upon the drums of war using her columns as a tool -- and now they will barely acknowledge having done so. Left-wing media bias my ass. UPDATE: 8:35 a.m. on 5/26/04, Nothing from Mr. Milky Load 8:37 a.m. and now we know why, because the product of Lucianne's "one night of lukewarm passion" at the intersection of Bonehead Street & Masturbation Avenue only cut and pasted the Times mea culpa and did no more. These poor souls cannot figure out who is putting their toe in the water first.