Did the Coverup work?

With the announcement in October 2005 of an indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff it became clear that the effort to delay the investigation worked, stretching out the release of the findings until after the 2004 election.

As Fitzgerald said of the lack of cooperation "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005" if people had cooperated.

Or as E.J. Dionne, Jr. in the Washington Post pointed out "Note the significance of the two dates: October 2004, before President Bush was reelected, and October 2005, after the president was reelected. Those dates make clear why Libby threw sand in the eyes of prosecutors, in the special counsel's apt metaphor, and helped drag out the investigation."

Does this really surprise anyone? No. Could anything have been done? Yes. The members of the media who were approached by Karl Rove and Libby could have decided either that they weren't bound by confidentiality as the story being pitched was an attack and not a news story or one of them could have told another reporter the details of the story and informed the public.

Instead Time and the rest of the media's inaction impacted the election. As MediaMatters pointed out, the issue of Time's actions over the past two years was revived by an August 25 Los Angeles Times article stating that the magazine did not pursue a waiver from Rove allowing Cooper to testify in part because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year."

Perhaps the press was in a no win situation. The press could have sat on the story and deceived the public. Or they could have told the public and be accused of playing sides. Gee which side is worse? Inform the public and get criticized or keep the public in the dark to support a cover-up?

Too media in the media went with the cover-up, just as the White House probably guessed, and the bet paid off. Big time.