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HOWARD KURTZ, HOST (voice over): Journalism on trial. Judith Miller and Matt Cooper testify in the Scooter Libby perjury case about the leaks they received from the former Dick Cheney aide. Did Washington journalists get too cozy with White House officials trying to out a CIA operative?
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KURTZ: Our critical lens this morning is focused on the trial that is pulling back the curtain on how Washington journalists get all those leaks, and it isn't pretty. I'm Howard Kurtz.

Dick Cheney's former top aide, Scooter Libby, is charged with perjury in the investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, but much of the coverage has focused on such witnesses as former "TIME" correspondent Matt Cooper, and Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail and lost her job at "The New York Times" over the way she handled her confidential dealings with Libby.

KURTZ: Joining us now are three people who have been covering the trial. In Denver, Jeralyn Merritt, a defense attorney who blogs at Talkleft.com. Here in Washington, John Dickerson, chief political correspondent for the online magazine "Slate." And Michael Isikoff, investigative correspondent for "Newsweek" and co-author of 'Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and Selling of the Iraq War."

Brief question, one-sentence answer from each of you. John Dickerson, we'll start with you. When this trial is over, will the reputation of Washington journalists have taken a serious hit?

JOHN DICKERSON, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "SLATE": Yes.

KURTZ: I like the brevity.

Michael Isikoff?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, "NEWSWEEK": Somewhat, but I think it's going to put more focus on the Bush administration than it will on Washington journalists.

KURTZ: Jeralyn Merritt.

JERALYN MERRITT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think it will take a little hit. It's titillating, but I agree with Michael that the attention should be on the Bush administration and how they deal with the media.

KURTZ: All right. John Dickerson is obviously right.

Now, John, you -- Judith Miller, you covered her testimony. She had a very spotty memory. Initially when she testified she couldn't remember her first meeting with Scooter Libby. And now she says she talked to other sources about Valerie Plame, she couldn't remember who those sources were. Did she look evasive?

DICKERSON: She looked evasive. She looked clueless for a long period. I mean, it was just one "I don't remember" after another.

And then one of the most powerful pieces of defense strategy was replaying her own words on a talk show when she said, you know, I was busy. I can't remember. Who can remember this? This wasn't a big deal at the time. This was only important later. Well, that's nearly the talking points or a portion from the opening statement by Libby's own defense attorneys, which is he was too busy, it wasn't that big a deal at the time.

Having said that, her credibility was diminished certainly, but it doesn't necessarily change the fact that she does have these memories. And her
memories aren't the only ones. There are other people who said Scooter Libby knew about Joe Wilson's wife when he said he didn't.

KURTZ: Sure. Mike Isikoff, Judith Miller lost her job at "The New York Times" over this. And she never wrote a story about this whole thing, oddly enough. What do you make -- what shall we conclude about her relationship with Libby?

ISIKOFF: Well, clearly Libby was a source, was a key source, and a misleading one. I think the most revealing part of her testimony is when she talked about when she meets with Libby to talk about the classified national intelligence estimate, and this hasn't been made public yet. It was a key document in the buildup to justify the war in Iraq.

She's pressing him on whether there's aspects in the classified NIE that had not been made public that would strengthen the administration's case or has doubts. Libby assures her it's stronger if you see the full NIE.

It was flat wrong. The NIE, as we now know, was filled with doubts. So he was giving her misleading information even after the war to justify the invasion in the first place.

KURTZ: Jeralyn Merritt, you're an attorney. You've seen a lot of cross-examinations. Was Judy Miller a credible witness?

MERRITT: You know, I think in part she was, because if you think about it, none of our memories would be great as to what happened three years ago. And we're all kind of dependent on our notes. And she was honest enough to say, I don't remember, I don't remember, I don't remember.

And on the other hand, what I took away from this, particularly when she talked about how Scooter Libby asked her to attribute certain statements to him being a former Hill staffer, instead of an administration official, was the deception that sometimes goes on.

KURTZ: A very good point.

John Dickerson, when the Ari Fleischer testified, the former White House press secretary, testified and mentioned you, you then wrote a piece in "Slate" in which you practically volunteered to be subpoenaed.

My question is, are you crazy?

DICKERSON: I may very well be. At the time, it was for me a surprise because he had contradicted something that I had actually already written. The importance...

KURTZ: Meaning whether or not he did or did not tell you about Valerie Plame?

DICKERSON: Exactly, which is still actually kind of a bit of a side matter. The important part...

KURTZ: Just to clarify, he says he did...

DICKERSON: He says he did, I say he didn't, and fortunately have notes and other things that back up my side of the story. But it was -- it was odd to hear him say that because it was something I certainly wasn't expecting at the time.

KURTZ: Michael Isikoff, is there any remaining doubt, regardless of Libby's guilt or innocence, that Vice President Cheney and his staff tried to use journalists to retaliate against Joe Wilson, who was accusing the administration at the time of twisting the prewar intelligence on weapons of
mass destruction?

ISIKOFF: No. I think the only debate would be whether it was to retaliate against Wilson, or, as the White House people would say, to rebut criticism -- you know, to...

KURTZ: To get out the administration's side of the story?

ISIKOFF: Yes, to get out their side of the story. But, you know, the bombshell testimony this week was the FBI agent who says Libby told her in his
first interview or second interview that he may well have discussed -- had a discussion with Cheney about whether to disclose to the press Valerie Plame's employment at the CIA. That puts Cheney right in the middle of this, far more than we ever knew before, and it's going to make for interesting testimony if Cheney, as we expect, takes the stand.

KURTZ: Jeralyn Merritt, Matt Cooper acknowledged on the stand that his notes were sloppy and incomplete. Judith Miller lost one of her notebooks and, as we have discussed, had trouble remembering things, who the other sources were.

Don't journalists here look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight?

MERRITT: They really did. And I have to say, particularly Matt Cooper, because, you know, I think Jeffress, Libby's lawyer, was very good in pointing out to the jury that the key sentence in Matt Cooper's note had missing letters and incorrectly typed letters, which, if you filled it out a different way, would show the exact opposite of what Matt Cooper recollected. And now the jury is being asked to take Matt Cooper at his word as to what he remembers today as opposed to what he wrote then.

KURTZ: I hope nobody ever looks at my notes.

Now, you know, it seems to me, John, that the tables are really turned here. We love to write stories about "Senator so and so claimed he couldn't remember the meeting." But now it turns out that when you get on the stand and you're
asked about things of three years ago, sometimes journalists don't do so well either.

DICKERSON: That's right. Although, and you mentioned that, you know, don't -- we don't want anybody to look at our notes. There was somebody in the press room who said, "I'm burning all of my notes."

Although, you could turn it the other way, which is, I'm actually quite happy I have my notes and took notes at the time, and have a record, because, in fact, it helps refresh the recollection and, in fact, helps back up your case if you're put in a situation where people are trying to get you to remember things that happened four years ago.

KURTZ: If you're a good note taker.

Mike Isikoff, does this whole spectacle affect you as somebody who deals with a lot of unnamed sources and the way the sources deal with you? The prospect that, you know, you might have to testify one day in some sensitive case?

ISIKOFF: You know, a lot was made of that at the time during when Fitzgerald was subpoenaing all the journalists and Judy Miller was going to jail, Matt Cooper was subpoenaed. You know, my sense is that it's had less of an effect than we all feared.

This is very much an ad hoc case. There are a lot of peculiar aspects to this particular case. But I think that, look, the motivations that people have for talking to reporters are still there, you know. They want to get their story out. They want to make it clear that they're getting screwed by their boss.

I mean, people still have a reason to want to talk to journalists, and I think the game is still going on much as the way it always did.

KURTZ: Do you agree with that?

DICKERSON: Yes, I think so, because the anonymous sources want to get their information out. And we're the only...

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: There's a reason that people leak.

DICKERSON: That's right. There's a reason, and particularly now with an administration that's shooting at each other, there are plenty of opportunities.

KURTZ: Jeralyn Merritt, Scooter Libby says he first learned about Valerie Plame working at the CIA -- Joe Wilson's wife -- from NBC's Tim Russert. And Russert says this never even came up in the conversation when Libby called him -- and Libby had called to complain about something Chris Matthews had said.

And Russert is going to testify this week. How does this battle of credibility shape up?

MERRITT: Well, I think it's going to be very tough for Scooter Libby, because I think what Fitz is going to focus -- Fitzgerald is going to focus on is not so much what Libby forgot, but whether or not he actually cooked up a story, and why he just said he heard things from journalists that he didn't hear. And it's his misstatements more than it is his omissions of recall. I think that's
what he's got to be really careful of.

KURTZ: It will be interesting to see the host of "Meet the Press" having to answer questions from an aggressive lawyer.

ISIKOFF: Well, yes, yes. I am sort of -- I think the defense will try to play Russert to Russert and sort of show up any statements that might -- but, you know, look, Russert is going to be the star witness for the prosecution. I think he's the cleanup witness, he's the last one to go. They really -- Fitzgerald has really invested a lot in his credibility. And given, you know, all those other witnesses, you have to say it's a pretty strong witness to end up with.

KURTZ: Well, here's my two cents.

I mean, anonymous sources are absolutely vital for investigative reporting for the exposing of corruption, health and safety problems, and that sort of thing. But journalists have gotten so promiscuous on granting anonymity on routine political stories that it makes us look bad. And here, in this particular case, we look like conduits for a campaign, a political campaign to
at least neutralize, if not retaliate, against a critic of the administration.

And so I think in this trial nobody, none of the witnesses look good, least of all journalists.

John Dickerson, Mike Isikoff, Jeralyn Merritt, thanks very much for an interesting discussion.