The Legal Zone

Universal Picture's new film, The Green Zone, is catching some deserved pre-release flak over the role of a character based on Judith Miller, the former reporter for The New York Times whose WMD reporting was discredited after the Iraq war.  Later, she served 90 days for contempt of court when she refused to disclose her source in the Valerie Plame show trial where Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were all named as defendents.  Scooter Libby was eventually convicted as the source, only to have Richard Armitage come clean as the initial source to late reporter Robert Novak after the Libby trial political damage was done.

Miller's story was the basis for the 2008 film Nothing But the Truth, which was released on DVD after its theatrical release was scratched. 

So, it's all the more intriguing that the Judith Miller character in The Green Zone, Lawrie Dayne, and played by Amy Ryan, works not for The New York Times, but The Wall Street Journal.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the character's newspaper was changed on the advice of the producers' attorneys:

"In the film's original screenplay, Dayne was identified as a reporter for the New York Times, but the legal departments at Universal Pictures and producing partner Working Title Films changed her affiliation to the Wall Street Journal so that audiences wouldn't confuse the character with an actual journalist. Universal said it was under no legal obligation to inform the Wall Street Journal of the change or the depiction.

"I'm not so sure that the Journal will be flattered that a big studio film is portraying one of their reporters as being duped by government misinformation, especially when it was their arch rival whose reporter was the real dupe, but it seems clear that the studio did it for legal reasons, not political ones. But when conservatives ridicule Hollywood movies for their politics, it's a rarity for anyone to let the facts get in the way of a good rant."

The irony doesn't end there.  The lead role in The Green Zone is played by Matt Damon.  His character is named Roy Miller.

Worse, with unbridled self-promotion, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame have worked overtime to cash in on their 15-minutes of fame.  Plame's spy and tell book, Fair Game, led her to sue her former employer, the CIA, who she accused of  "unconstitutionally interfering with the publication of her memoir."  The judge in the case ruled for the CIA, saying "Valerie Plame's constitutional freedoms were overridden by the Classified Information Act."  No matter,  Fair Game will soon be released by Warner Brothers.  Naomi Watts plays Valerie Plame; Sean Penn plays Joe Wilson.  Yep, you can't make this stuff up.