On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher sat down with Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter about her reporting heading into the Iraq war.
During the interview, Maher called out Miller, and reminded her that it is the job of the 4th estate to keep a check on the military industrial complex.
“We kind of depend on the fourth estate to call bullshit on the military-industrial complex,” said Maher. “They are always trying to do this.”
Miller responded by defending her approach at the time.
“I couldn’t have been more skeptical,” Miller said. “Every time I got more information that contradicted something we had reported, I went back and did a second story.”
Maher understood that Miller was not unique for the time. Many reporters were caught up in the Bush administration’s lies.
“You were hardly the only one,” said Maher. “First of all, you had editors who printed your stories. They had the final say. You had bylines that you shared with other people. And somehow you’re the only one in the picture. So I’m sympathetic to that. What I’m not so sympathetic to is the idea that nobody else was saying we shouldn’t go to war.”
