Kinsley Disgraces L.A. Times By Failing To Take A Stand for Judith Miller

Written from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, Alaska --

The L.A. Times editorial pages have steadily gone downhill under the incompetent and unprincipled direction of the always-wobbly Michael Kinsley, an absentee overlord..

But never has Kinsley disgraced himself and the paper more profoundly than by his unwillingness to take a firm stand in the political jailing by a corrupt legal system of New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Indeed, the federal prosecutor in this sordid episode has now cited the weak position of the L.A. Times in his argument defending the unfair persecution of both Miller and the free press. He says the L.A. Times position vindicates his own.

The L.A. Times has now descended to the level where it is cited by the enemies of the press in a case of political emprisonment.

I've on occasion been willing to give Kinsley the benefit of the doubt in terms of experimenting for changes on the editorial page, questionable as many are..

But his failure to defend the important principle of the use of confidential sources and refusal to identifify them to government prosecutors goes beyond the line. Kinsley can no longer claim to be a legitimate representative of the press, because he has shown himself willing to give up press freedoms.

In the campa9ign for the liberation of Miller, we can no more abide by this new Benedict Arnold, a man who simply doesn't believe in safeguarding press freedoms or much else in his waffling and mistatements of cardinal facts.

Get rid of the bum! Send him back to Seattle, where he doesn't really belong either.