Ambassador Joseph Wilson nails it again, with this statement he gave me a few minutes ago:
The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush's refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point. Clearly, the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa.
The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly.
Since this diary went up, Wilson and I have had a couple of email exchanges, in which I thanked him profusely for thinking of us first and helping citizen journalism and blogs in general. (And man, has he ever been our friend!) And here's one of the cool things he said when I thanked him for his help:
I am glad to play a small role. In my America, when companies get big and lazy, competion arises. That is what is happening with the blogs. The press MSM) has gotten fat and lazy. The blogs are now driving the stories.
It is the American way! Joe