This really bothered me at the time

I wrote about this at the time it was occurring, but the fact that Judith Miller was allowed to report on the Oil-for-Food UN investigation after what we knew about her at the time was a huge credibility problem. Of course, what I wrote about it doesn't involve an ego-boosting link to something funny so you'll just have to trust me.

But now it is being talked about as it should have been then, by the media:

Over the last year or so, Judith Miller also wrote a series of damaging reports on the "oil for food" scandal at the United Nations -- in particular, personally damaging to Secretary General Kofi Annan because the reports were frequently based on half-truths or hearsay peddled on Capitol Hill by people determined to force Annan out of office. At the UN, this was interpreted as payback for the UN's refusal to back the US war in Iraq. As a former NYT UN bureau chief [now retired] I have been asked repeatedly by diplomats, former US government officials, journalists still reporting from the organization and others why Times editors did not step in to question some of this reporting -- a lot of it proved wrong by the recent report by Paul Volcker -- or why the paper seemed to be on a vendetta against the UN. The Times answered that question Sunday in its page one report on the Miller affair. Ms. Run Amok had at least one very highly placed friend at the paper, and many Timespeople were afraid to tangle with her because of that. Note also, that Ambassador John Bolton, a severe critic of the UN and a figure so controversial he could not face a confirmation hearing in the Senate, was one of the administration officials who took time to visit Miller in jail.

Judy and the NY Times have not yet begun to be dragged through the mud...and they deserve it.