defending Judy to the point of silliness

The NYT editorial page reached a new low in its defense of Judith Miller on Monday, drawing an equivalency between her jailing and the jailing by China of Zhao Yan, also an employee of the Times, presumably as retribution for the Times pre-empting Jiang Zemin's retirement announcement.

The editorial admits that "there are differences, of course." Indeed.

As best we know, Judith Miller was witness to a federal crime (exposing the identiy of a secret agent), committed by someone at the top ranks of government. Zhao Yan is in no such situation.

At least this editorial didn't bother with all the language abound defending the rights of journalists who speak to whistleblowers, as previous ones have. Someone remind me when the last time was that Judith Miller based a story on a whistleblower? Or that Karl Rove was a seret whistleblower in the Bush administration?