OK, Which one of you snot-nosed brats broke my window?

Says the pissed-off neighbor to the kids playing baseball in the street. The kids point fingers at each other. He did it. She did it. No, he did it.

New York Times Management are pointing their fingers at Judy "Kneepads" Miller. Judy is pointing her finger at Scooter Libby. Scooter has to be pointing his finger at Big Dick Cheney and/or Karl Rove and/or the White House Iraq Group.

Self-preservation is the primary human motivator. Shifting painful punishment on others in order to save your own ass is the product of an essential survival instinct.

By pitting the brats against each other FitzKenobi is making his way up the blame-chain all the way to the kingpins. Figuring out who ordered the hit on Wilson is more important than determining who carried it out.

Sulzberger and Keller (NYT Management) Finger Judy Miller

From today's NYT article, which was undoubtedly commissioned and vetted by NYT management. It can be considered their version of events.

Interviews show that the paper's leaders, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control.

"This car had her hand on the wheel because she was the one at risk," Mr. Sulzberger said.

Translation: Judy Miller is an out-of-hand crazed bitch. No way were we going to mess with her. So we let her personal considerations determine our editorial policy on the matter for the past two years. It was her deal, we didn't know what she was doing we had nothing to do with it.

This is the Rogue Executive scenario, the exact same way another corrupt criminal bastard, Kenny Boy Lay, tried to deal with his Enron criminal charges.

Kenny Boy tried to exonerate himself by saying that he had no idea Rogue Executives were cooking Enron's books and cheating utility customers out of billions of dollars. Even though he was the CEO and the Rogue Executives' criminal behavior was the only reason Enron's stock went through the roof, benefiting Kenny Boy personally to the tune of millions of dollars.

Yeah, right.

Sulzberger and Keller want us to believe 1) they had no idea what Judy was up to; 2) they were intimidated by their employee and were unable to control her. I have a suggestion: how about threatening to fire her ass? Or threatening to stop paying her legal bills? Works pretty well as far as controlling employees in my work experience. 3) They decided to have the NYT maintain complete silence on one of the most important stories of the decade, allowing the their paper to get scooped by the competion time and time again in order to protect the journalistic honor of the aforementioned out-of-control bitch?

Yeah, right.

As Lambert has theorized, NYT management was in on the whole thing. They and their company benefited from Judy's special access to top White House and Military officials. They might have also felt ideologically aligned with Bush/Neocon policy.

If NYT management had allowed their News Department to truthfully investigate the matter, it would revealed that the NYT was involved in criminal, traitorous activity. It was in NYT Management's self-interest to spike these stories or prevent them from even being written.

When Judy pointed her finger squarely at Scooter in her second round of testimony, it let her, and by extension Sulzberger, Keller et al. off the hook. That's why they were all grinning ear to ear on the courthouse steps.

Judy Miller Fingers Scooter Libby

In her account of her June 23, 2003 meeting with Scooter at the Old Executive office building, Judy writes:

Soon afterward Mr. Libby raised the subject of Mr. Wilson's wife for the first time. I wrote in my notes, inside parentheses, "Wife works in bureau?" I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the C.I.A.

Whoop, there it is. Judy says she testified to the Grand Jury that Scooter told her Valerie Plame's classified occupation. That's the crime. And that's all we need to know.

Note that this is before Wilson's op ed is printed and possibly even before Count Novakula gets the same info.

The smoke blowing in the rest of her article is nothing but a desperate attempt to to appease her Administration friends by appearing like she's still protecting Scooter. Despite all that, it's obvious she ratted him out.

More from Kneepads:

Equally central to my decision was Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He had declined to confine his questioning to the subject of Mr. Libby. This meant I would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Mr. Wilson or his wife - for articles published in The Times. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning.

Mr. Fitzgerald told the grand jury that I was testifying as a witness and not as a subject or target of his inquiry.

Translation: Ms. Miller, you've been flipped.

FitzKenobi did not change his mind and decide to cut Judy a break out of generosity. In the intervening period FitzKenobi got someone else to flip on Judy's "other source(s)" (Dick and/or Karl). By late September, all he needed her for was to nail Scooter solidly to the wall.

Scooter Libby Fingers Dick Cheney and/or Karl Rove

Now FitzKenobi can progress to the next link in the chain. My guess is that he got Scooter to flip on Dick or Karl or both. In exchange, FitzKenobi probably cut Scooter a deal on his sentence as well, which would explain Scooter's sudden willingness to let Judy testify aginst him.

My guess is that Scooter flipped on Cheney because FitzKenobi already has Matt Cooper's testimony against Karl Rove. Maybe he got Scooter to rat out the whole WHIG. Funny how we don't hear much about the substance of his Grand Jury testimony, isn't it? Accoring to TalkLeft, he has appeared no less than four times.

It's like an episode of Law & Order where the first part shows how the crime was committed and by whom. In the second part the cops and the prosecutors work backwards through the chain of connections to get to what you already know. The perps lie and misdirect and confuse, but The Law flips them one at a time to build a chain of incriminating testimony.

The left-blogosphere has known since 2003 how the crime was committed and by whom. It's logical and it's based on the principles of Motive and Opportunity. Who had the motive to punish Joe Wilson for criticizing the Bush Adminstration? Answer: The top people in the Bush Administration. Who had the oppotunity to know Wilson's Wife's classified occupation? Answer: The top people in the Bush Administration.

Gathering the evidence and the incriminating testimony takes a lot longer, that's why it's 95% of a Law and Order show. I believe FitzKenobi is the man to do it. If he pulls this off he will go down in history as an American Hero. If he doesn't he will go down in history as the Greatest American Bummer.

UPDATE: Frank Rich connects De Plame to the unmentionable WHIG and Bush/Cheney (available free via Riggsveda's Magic Blowfish)#. He makes a great point. FitzKenobi's investigation of motives in the Plame hit begs the question: why? The only answer is: to defend the lies that led the US to the disastrous war Bush/Cheney wanted above all else.

UPDATE 2: Oh shizzle. The Grey Lady has stomped on Riggs' Magic Blowfish with her Ferragamo's. No more free access to information for you. What a total bitch.