Big-Balled Mama

Judy Miller, the sharp elbowed New York Times reporter, wrote a full-page story this week about herself-who else?-and why she went to jail to protect a man who calls himself Scooter.

We all know putting a New York Times reporter on the stand is like hearing testimony from the Pope. Infallible. And how many Pulitzers did the Pope win, anyway?

The grand jury was investigating who exactly leaked the name of then-undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband wrote an oped for-yup, you got it-the Times attacking White House claims about pre-war Iraq weapons plans.

Instead of testifying and breaking the sacred bond, Miller went to jail. Before you think about that movie with the tough brunette going to an all?foxy lady jail, remember that this one has a twist.

A written note and personal phone call from her source-who turned out to be I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff-released Miller from their pact. Eighty-five days later, she's free.

Judy emerged with the Martha Stewart jailhouse stare, a martyr to real journalists and the spin doctors they protect.

Years ago, Boston's Mayor Curley was angry that people thought Frank Skeffington, the charismatic anti-hero of Edwin O'Connor's novel The Last Hurrah was based on him. He loudly and repeatedly denied this, inspiring New York's own Robert Moses to acidly remark that if Curley were half as smart as Skeffington he would have bragged about the comparison.

Miller made much the same mistake.

She opened her mouth in the Times to deny the obvious. Even while detailing everything from her breakfast with Scooter at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington to her "clearance to see secret information as part of my special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons" in Iraq, she claimed not to remember the identity of the source whom, you'll recall, she went to jail to protect.

No one-not even the CIA-has been able to confirm Miller's claim about "clearance to see secret information." That's how secret it is.

But the question is: Did Scooter rat out Plame?

Watch this bitch lay it down.

"I had written the words 'Valerie Flame,' clearly a reference to Ms. Plame," Miller said. Clearly.

Then, "I said I believe the information came from another source, whom I cold not recall."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we smile at the mere thought of that brunette bombshell, Judy Miller. She's the only woman with balls big enough to go to jail to protect a person she isn't quite sure gave her the information she kind of got wrong and anyways never published.