Wit & Attitude Quote by Matthew Cooper

Calling it "crazy" is a journalist's way of staging an intervention without sounding like a lawyer. Matthew Cooper isn't just objecting to Judith Miller's imprisonment on procedural grounds; he's flagging a cultural glitch in how post-9/11 America wanted to treat the press. The line is blunt, almost impatient, because the point isn't to litigate Miller's choices but to register the disproportion: a reporter behind bars for refusing to name a source, while the political machinery that produced the leak hums along essentially untouched.

The subtext is anxious solidarity laced with professional self-interest. Cooper is defending a norm that keeps his whole industry functional: confidentiality as currency. If sources can't believe in the firewall, they stop talking, and the press becomes a recycling plant for official statements. "Crazy" also carries a faint accusation that the state is acting irrationally, or at least opportunistically, turning contempt powers into a public spectacle meant to discipline the press.

Context matters because Miller was a uniquely polarizing figure, already tarnished by her Iraq WMD reporting. Cooper's phrasing implicitly separates the principle from the person: even if you think she got major stories wrong, the punishment risks rewriting the rules for everyone. There's also a quiet plea here to the public: don't confuse your anger at one journalist with a mandate to shrink press freedom. The line works because it compresses a complicated ethics debate into a gut-level reaction, daring readers to feel the imbalance first and argue later.