Billmon: Pinch and Judy Show

I don't have the time, or the interest, to pick at all the loose ends in this story, but I can sure see a whole bunch of them:

Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released from a Virginia detention center this afternoon after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor to testify . . . Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him . . .

That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case.

Two Washington Post reporters (Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus) testified last year under a waiver of confidentiality granted by Libby. So did Time's Matt Cooper. Libby says he granted the same waiver to Miller more than a year ago. And yet St. Judy, the Martyr of Times Square, decided to squat in jail for 85 days, and only then talk to Libby on the phone to confirm that the waiver was "freely given." And now, thanks to that one phone call, she's ready to spill her guts to the grand jury? Does this make sense?