Preview of 'Vanity Fair' Article on Plamegate: Too Much of Nothing?

By: Greg Mitchell A massive Vanity Affair review of the Plame/CIA case coming to newsstands on Tuesday is notable for the absence of major revelations. The article, ?Lies and Consequences,? covers all or parts of 17 pages but the money quote is merely a joke, from the normally bland Bob Woodward. He quips that while insiders argue the fine points of special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald?s probe, those in the rest of the country ?think Fitzgerald is the author of ?The Great Gatsby.??

Actually, the only jolt for some readers will come nearly halfway through when they read that the writer of the piece, Marie Brenner, is a good friend of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller?and even helped organize a farewell dinner for her just before she went to jail last year. The article, no surprise, is sympathetic to Miller, and Robert Novak, too, and against prosecutors going after information gained by journalists.

The story does include a hint that former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee thinks Woodward's source in the Plame fiasco is Richard Armitrage, but that has been suggested before. With so little really new in the article, one thing that jumps out is the impact of blogs?principally The Huffington Post--on the Miller case.

One interesting exchange occurred when Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor, allegedly told Miller back in 2003 that she would have to quit reporting from Iraq because she had become ?radioactive?.You can see it on the blogs.? Miller claims she replied, ?Why do you give a shit about the blogs? They do not know anything.? (Brenner relates that Keller disputes this, saying he?s ?pretty sure? he never said any such thing.)

Then Brenner quotes Miller complaining about the lack of editing on the blogs and that sometimes ?slanderous? attacks on her appear there. But, actually, she is more "appalled? by her colleagues ?who believed what they read on the blogs.?

But as time passed, Miller could not escape the blogs, principally Huffington, even though her attorney Floyd Abrams says, ?No one takes this stuff seriously, do they?? At another point he refers to "the defamation that was running on the blogs."

The article recounts a scene where another lawyer visits Miller in jail and hands her a clip from Huffington, saying, ?You are going to be upset with this.? In view of that attorney, Arianna Huffington and other bloggers were ?passing off speculation as fact? or engaging in ?pure character assassination.? This was a problem because, as Brenner writes, Huffington?s blog was ?steadily gaining heft? and had ?become must reading for the media.?

This became particularly troubling when ?people at the Times appeared to be talking to Huffington.?

Brenner then quotes famed investigator Lowell Bergman as claiming that Huffington?s idea that Miller was a White House collaborator ?was a fantasy fed by the deep animosity of people toward Judy.? For Brenner the question is, "Did partisan politics trump the First Amendment?"

Only Bob Woodward claims to be immune from blog fever. He tells Brenner he doesn't look at them at all--unless an assistant directs him to something specific.

Brenner's strongest new fact comes near the end when a Hearst Corp. attorney reveals that the company was served with 42 subpoenas relating to reporters in the last six months of 2005, eight times the number in the same period the year before. This is attributed to "Plamegate." Brenner then goes on to cite Judith Miller's reporter friends Lowell Bergman and David Barstow, who blame "Fitzgerald's mission and the agenda of the progressive left."