There are two sides to every story. Judith Miller has created a website with her letter to the New York Times as well as a response to Maureen Dowd's column.

[hat tip Raw Story.] You can also read her letter here at the New York Times website. Jane at FiredogLake provides analysis.

Something I just noticed: The article at the Times website about Miller's departure from the paper is headlined, "Reporter Agrees to Leave Paper." That is a further slam to Miller in that it implies she was asked to leave and agreed. If the departure was her idea, wouldn't the headline simply read "Reporter Leaves Paper"? Kathryn Seelye who wrote the article may not have written the headline, but still, shouldn't someone have noticed this? I bet Judith Miller will.

The Denver Film Festival opens tomorrow and runs through November 20. If there's one film I hope people will see it is Fighting For Life in the Death Belt which will have its Colorado premiere on Thursday, November 17 at 6pm at Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli.

The film considers capital punishment in the U.S. through the eyes of Stephen Bright, who has served as the Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights for the past 20 years. Bright is a hero to the criminal defense bar for his unwavering commitment to defending death row inmates in the heart of the "death belt" - the Southern states where 90% of America's executions take place.

The film follows Bright and the Center's 11 lawyers and 10 investigators as they prepare for a capital trial in one case while fighting to save another client from execution. The trailer is here.

Nancy Goldstein has a new article on the forgotten and left behind children of the incarcerated - undeserving casualites of the War on Drugs.

The surge in the US prison population has nothing to do with an increase in violent crime: homicide, rape, robbery, and assault have all declined steadily since 1993. Its source is the so-called “war on drugs,” which cost taxpayers a cool 12 billion in 2004 alone, and has done nothing to reduce illegal drug use or availability.

....the number of women incarcerated in state facilities for drug-related offenses rose by 888% between 1986 and 1999, far outpacing the number of men imprisoned for similar crimes.

Goldstein's article is a review of journalist Nell Bernstein’s new book, All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated.

by TChris

British lawmakers, unmoved by scare tactics and reluctant to sacrifice civil liberties, declined to adopt Tony Blair's proposal to authorize police to detain suspected terrorists for 90 days without filing charges.

Instead, lawmakers, including some from Blair's own Labour Party, voted for a maximum detention period of 28 days without charge.

A 28 day detention based on nothing more than suspicion is egregious, but at least it's less draconian than three months behind bars. Sadly, Blair doesn't get it.

by TChris

Judith Miller and the NY Times have reached a severance agreement that ends Miller's checkered career at the Times.

Under the agreement, Ms. Miller will retire from the newspaper, and The Times will print a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position. Ms. Miller originally demanded that she be able to write an essay for the paper's Op-Ed page refuting the allegations against her, the lawyers said. The Times refused that demand - Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, said, "We don't use the Op-Ed page for back and forth between one part of the paper and another" - but agreed to let her to write the letter.

Miller's farewell letter will appear in tomorrow's Times -- although not in the funny pages, where it will likely belong.

Breaking: Suicide bombers at Western hotels in Jordan have killed 20 57. Blame is being levied at al-Qaida.

One of the bombs may have been placed in a false ceiling.

Update: here.

by TChris

Andrea Yates, convicted of drowning her children, earned a new trial when an appellate court ruled that an expert witness for the prosecution testified falsely.

Dr. Park Dietz ... told jurors Yates may have been influenced by a "Law & Order" epidsode, but the episode did not exist.

TalkLeft background on the decision is here.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals let that decision stand, prompting Harris County District Attorney Charles Rosenthal to complain that the case set a "frightening precedent." It would be frightening if prosecutors could get away with using lying witnesses to obtain convictions. Rosenthal's whining should be directed at his dishonest witness, not at a process that assured Yates the chance of a fair trial.

Alliance for Justice warns not to be fooled by the "Alito charm campaign" which is promoting Judge Alito's belief in stare decisis. It is no guarantee that he’ll follow it as a Supreme Court justice.

They have put together a document (pdf) showing what happened during Justice Thomas’s nomination process and what happened after he ascended to the High Court.

Laura Rozen of War and Piece writes about why the Bush-Cheney proposal to exempt the CIA from the torture amendment should be rejected. Among her arguments:

I was in a torture chamber once, in the basement of a police station in Kosovo days after it was abandoned by Serb forces defeated by Nato. It was hideous as you would imagine. The British soldiers who were with me were equally shocked. A lot of the instruments and interrogation drugs I saw there also suggest they were not designed to cause organ failure or death in their victims, just pain and terror, as Mr. Cheney and his office mates suggest is what they are going for in terms of legal wiggle room. And like Mr. Cheney and his office mates, Mr. Milosevic and his Serb troops didn't seem to overly concern themselves with the Geneva conventions, until it was a bit late. Having laid my eyes on what such a scene looks like, I just associate such activities with the forces of not only the pathological and depraved, but those who are headed for defeat. If you've seen it, you realize in a way that's hard to explain, it's the tactics of the losers.

All four ballot initiatives backed by Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger failed at the polls yesterday.

Voters turned down his plans to curb state spending, redraw California's political map, restrain union politics and lengthen the time it takes teachers to get tenure. Voters also rejected four other statewide initiatives, including one requiring parental approval for a minor's abortion.

Bump and Update: I can't believe I took the time to do this, but I did. At the end of the post you will find all of the same day appearances, times included, for 2002 for Joseph Wilson and Paul Vallely. [Source: Lexis.com] With the possible exception of one date, September 12, when they were on different segments of Studio B with Shepard Smith, they would not have been in the green room within hours of each together. And even that date is dubious unless Vallely arrived very early for his segment.

Update: Left Coaster has more.

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Original Post (11/8)

Crooks and Liars has a roundup of blogger reaction to the right wing's attempt to smear Joseph Wilson by claiming he leaked his wife's identity in 2002 to Paul Vallely in the Green Room of Fox News. The smear tactic won't work.

It looks like President Bush officially begins his lame duck status this morning.

The New York Times:

...everyone from political consultants to the leaders of countries in the remote corners of Asia and Africa are going to assume the same thing from the results of yesterday's balloting: Mr. Bush's political capital has turned into a deficit.....

The issue right now is a national fear that the White House has no plan, and no capacity to carry one out even if it existed.

Associated Press: