The only real surprise that Judith Miller is going to work for Fox News is that it took so long. I can't think of two entities who did more to jam this country chin-deep in the quicksand of Iraq.

As Howard Kurtz quotes a Fox honcho in his Washington Post blog, "She has an impressive resume." Amen. A pulitzer winner, Miller also hefts what can only be called impressive baggage. According to Kurtz:

"...She is nothing if not controversial. Miller left the New York Times in 2005 after testifying in the trial of former White House aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby that he had leaked her information about a CIA operative. Miller's conduct in the case, which led to her serving 85 days in jail for initially refusing to testify, drew rebukes from the Times executive editor and some of her colleagues.

"In the run-up to the Iraq war, Miller reported stories on the search for Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be untrue, some of which were cited in a Times editor's note acknowledging the flawed coverage. Miller, now with the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote when she left the paper that she had 'become a lightning rod for public fury over the intelligence failures that helped lead our country to war.'"

Kurtz confirms that Miller's duties will include on-air work. Certainly, she's believeable: Most of the New York Times readers who followed her breathlessly "vetted" tales of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction arsenal bought the whole sack of malarkey. Getting most of her scoops from the office of neocon fave-rave and Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi - who helped unleash "Curveball" on the world - wouldn't pass a Clifford Irving smell test as "viable reporter".

In that distressed, post-9/11 time, the stricken U.S. would believe anything. Neoconservatives in and out of government and the media sought to base a large, standing American military force in the Mideast - expanding upon what already had been stationed there after the first gulf war. For some of them, it was about establishing an American Empire; for others, providing for Israel's present and future security. And access to oil was alway key in an administration top-heavy with ex-oil men.  

In pressing the war and invasion, Miller and the neocons were counting on a reasonably expected condition: That there existed some semblance of weapons development systems - either as chemical/biological agents or nuclear weapons. As the weeks after the invasion dribbled past, and the reality of such dread operations evaporated like water on the arid sands, it became clear that Saddam Hussein had fired the last shot of the battle, had scored the last laugh in this tragic farce. He had utterly eliminated the weapons programs, and so doing had rendered pointless the attack and occupation of his country.

Maybe Ms. Miller's work will be a little more clear-eyed at Fox. Her work helped destroy the credibility of one of America's great newspapers - although the Times helped itself along that degraded path, sitting on news of the secret government surveillance program, and hiring reporters who had a habit of faking their stories.

Other than that, as a relentless, shameless warmongerer, she should fit right in.