All Judy All The Time

Josh Marshall at TPM gets to what's been the underlying current of this whole Judy Miller/Plamegate/NYT dick-stomp, and it's precisely that: an underlying current. Marshall likens it to a black hole in that we know it's there because the gravitational constant of the quantum singularity -- in this case, the kid gloves treatment of Miller -- indicates such, even if we cannot see it because no light can escape:

When you read the Times Sunday article plus Miller's apologia, there's too much there that is simply inexplicable in terms of what we already know. Going into this mess Miller's reputation was already severely checkered and her journalistic judgment very much in question. And yet Sulzberger and Keller (the first in the van, the second following with an odd passivity) staked the reputation of the Times itself on her and went along for this whole ride without even getting the most basic information from her about what had happened?

Simple poor judgment doesn't explain that for me. Something else is up.

I'll tell you what it is, Josh: Judy Miller is the greatest lay since the Virgin Mary. That's it! It's gotta be!! Why else would grown, professional men fall all over themselves only to be impaled on the swords of integrity and professionalism?

You think I'm kidding? Ask any man: What's the only thing in the world worth taking the risk of screwing up your career over? Answer: A righteous piece of ass!! It's only the history of mankind.

Now Judy Miller is no Eva Longoria, granted, but she's not bad -- that is, if you can get past the rictus-grinning megalomania and a penchant for ball-cutting the likes of which'd make a man beg for the rusty hedge-clippers as a pleasureable alternative. And we're talking about upper-middle-aged men (Pinch the Publisher notwithstanding; although, dollars2donuts, he's getting some too). Ahmad Chalabi, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Rummy, Bill Keller, Lou Dobbs, Thomas Friedman -- she's done 'em all, and better than they've had in too Goddamned long (the history of middle-aged mankind).

And there it is! End of mystery. The fall of the greatest newspaper in the world, or at least its credibility, and of the Bush administration, which never had any:

Nooky!