It has now been almost two weeks since Truthout and Jason Leopold reported that Karl Rove had been indicted and given 24 hours to get his affairs in order. We still haven't seen any sign of that indictment, nor has anyone in the mainstream media been able to confirm the story.
What should we read into that? Well, we'd submit that this is instructive. The National Journal's Murray Waas reported Thursday that just as the Plamegate investigation was beginning in 2003, Robert Novak called Rove to tell him that he would protect his identity as a source and to assure him that he wouldn't find himself in trouble for leaking. And less than 24 hours later, at least two mainstream media outlets have found sources willing to confirm the story. MSNBC says it has confirmation of Waas' story from "sources close" to Rove, while Bloomberg says it has confirmed the story with "a person familiar with the matter."
If two different news organizations can, within a matter of hours, track down confirmation of a story about a telephone call between two men nearly three years ago, how is it that dozens of reporters following the Plame case can't confirm a story that purportedly involved television news crews, Secret Service agents and the locking down of an entire floor of a major Washington law firm just this month?
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