georgia10 (whose vote fraud piece remains the best intro to that controversy) made a stunning catch yesterday. Others have made the same find. This data nugget deserves greater publicity, because the ramifications go deeper than might at first seem to be the case.
In her account of her testimony to Fitzgerald, Judy was asked about that strange "Aspen" business in Libby's letter to her.
How did you interpret that? Fitzgerald asked Miller.
In answer, I told the grand jury about my last encounter with Mr. Libby. It came in August 2003, shortly after I attended a conference on national security issues held in Aspen, Colo. After the conference, I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyo. At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me. He asked me how the Aspen conference had gone. I had no idea who he was.Jackson Hole is the place Dick Cheney calls home.
"Judy," he said. "It's Scooter Libby."
(He hasn't moved to Maryland yet. There's also a cute little room in Butner, N.C., where he might end up staying for a while, if all goes well.)
Cheney was staying in Jackson Hole in August, 2003 -- the entire month. And Scooter, it seems, has been known to play major domo at the veep's spread.
Care to hazard a guess as to the name of Judy's source -- the name she pretends to have forgotten?
The real question is: Why did Judy even reveal this bit of data?
Nothing compelled her to discuss grand jury testimony in print. Why did she make the apparently gratuitous gesture of nudging the reader toward Cheney without actually sullying the newsprint with his name?
'Twas a shot across the bow, methinks. In my view, this passage in her piece constitutes a semi-covert signal to the man she is protecting. The message: "I haven't mentioned your name in public -- yet." Perhaps she wants something in exchange for her silence -- a quid pro quo.
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Another piece falls into place? If Judy was tight with Cheney--tight enough for an extended visit with him in Jackson Hole--then that would certainly explain her power to direct forces in Iraq. It would also explain how Judy got her privileged status with her sources (e.g. Chalabi). It would explain why she pushed so hard the WMD stories in the Times. And, it would fully explain why the Times is now so between a rock and a hard place: that is, Sulzberger and Keller KNEW that her guardian angel and and ultimate source was the Vice-President. They knew it then, and they know right now who she is protecting. So the Times is doubly damned, firstly for selling out journalistic ethics by acting as a mouthpiece for the administration, and secondly for covering up the real reason Judy went to prison. Oh, man, if Cheney goes down, the NYT Board of Directors will stand Sulzberger and Keller up before a firing squad! I'll bet those two haven't slept in three months!
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