Jon Stewart and the News

Former New York Times journalist Judith Miller appeared on “The Daily Show” and went head-to-head with Jon Stewart over her reporting during the lead up to the Iraq War. She has a book to sell; he has a position. The exchange, sometimes intense, is illuminating and shows that sometimes entertainment can be constructive.

Miller’s reporting of Saddam Hussein‘s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) both before and after the 2003 invasion sparked intense controversy when it was discovered to be based on faulty information — especially from now-discredited source Ahmed Chalabi — and Stewart was quick to point the finger of blame for the conflict at the journalist.

"I hoped that people like you would read it and determine that it was really, really hard to do this kind of reporting,” said Miller, referring to her new book, “The Story: A Reporter’s Journey.”

“I wasn’t alone, I had lots and lots of company. The intelligent sources we were talking to had never been wrong before,” she said. Rather than coming from Dick Cheney or George W. Bush, “the information came from the men and women who had steered me right on Al Qaeda and 9/11, who had told me that the former Soviet Union had a huge cache of biological weapons that they had never acknowledged and they were right,” she said.

While Miller claimed she reported “what the intelligence community believed,” Stewart said she wrote what the White House was feeding her. He did not have specifics.

“These discussions always make me incredibly sad because I feel like they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility on it and they pass the buck,” Stewart continuing his own path to its conclusion.

“I think they point to intelligence failures that I still worry about — we are still relying on the same information on Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and the other countries,” Miller replied.