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At 3:55 p.m. yesterday afternoon, Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has spent nearly three months in prison for refusing to testify in the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, was released from prison. Miller was released because she has agreed to testify.

For something like a year, Miller has insisted that a pledge of confidentiality to a source was sacrosanct; even if the source seemingly released a reporter from the pledge, she continually said, there was no way of knowing that release wasn't coerced. Miller agreed to testify because her source, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby — who we're sure was teased mercilessly, and rightfully, in elementary school for that ridiculous name — released her from her pledge.

Of course, I. Lewis "Scooter" has previously released Miller from her pledge, first by signing a general waiver. But Miller felt such a waiver was simply a formality and perhaps coerced, and therefore she wouldn't use it as an excuse to break her vow. She is talking now only after a personal, direct, and convincing release — just like the one Karl Rove gave Time's Matt Cooper "in a somewhat dramatic fashion" just hours before Cooper, with Miller, was to be sentenced to jail. It's also like the personal, direct release Scooter had previously given Cooper, under which Cooper last year testified about his conversations with the Scoot-man. Oh, and it's also like the direct, personal release that Libby now says he gave to Miller's former lawyer, noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, more than a year ago, which was somehow never adequately communicated to Miller.

We have three different cynical takes on this, and we can't decide which is most significant or most likely to be, you know, actually true, so we'll share all three.

First: While we genuinely admire Miller's devotion to her principles — God knows we have none to ours — we can't help but notice how 12 weeks in jail can make one's principles more, well, pliable. (Which we suppose is sort of the point.) Also, we imagine, turning from the patsy who screwed up WMD reporting into the martyr who stood up to the government has to help, too.

Second: It's worth noting that both Miller and Cooper worked out deals to avoid/get out of jail only after Floyd Abrams stopped being their lawyer. (And also that other reporters subpoenaed in this case, who never had Abrams as their lawyer, worked out deals early on and were never in danger of going to prison.) Perhaps the noted First Amendment attorney has forgotten that the First Amendment itself is not his client.

And, third: Man, is Scooter a colossal asshole. He couldn't have made this personal phone call, oh, about 12 weeks ago? When Rove made his to Cooper? You know, before Miller went to jail?

Imagine how he'd treat a reporter who hadn't uncritically reported all their pre-war bullshit.

Times Reporter Free From Jail; She Will Testify [NYT]
Statements by Sulzberger, Keller, Miller on Her Release [E&P]