Grumpy Old Man Strikes Again

An e-mail I wrote to Reliable Sources was read on the air last Sunday (it's about halfway down, just grep for "Nandor").

The question was, from the previous week, "Should the media have given more coverage of the decision not to indict Karl Rove in the CIA leak case?"

Here's the complete e-mail I sent (the part read on the air italicized):

I think the Rove non-indictment was given as much coverage as it deserved, given its actual importance. However, given the incredible amount of coverage the story received previously -- far more than it was due -- the media absolutely should have given more coverage to last week's announcement.

There was never any evidence Rove broke any laws, there was never a promise by Bush to fire someone who was "involved" (only if they actually did something wrong), and so on.

Worst of all, the other "story" about this -- that Bush authorized Libby to give information to reporters -- was the biggest nonstory I've ever seen in my life. Three years ago, we knew that Bush authorized the release of the formerly classified Iraq NIE to reporters, and that INR disagreed with significant portions of the NIE (the information given to reporters included quotes from INR).

Yet, now it is a huge story that Bush told Libby he could give this information to one or more reporters 10 days before the wider release? How is that a huge story? You even had Arianna Huffington on your show claiming that we didn't know all the things that we, in fact, did know.

So given all this insane coverage of this story over the years, the coverage of Rove's non-indictment was remarkably undercovered, and exposes a serious bias in the press (not necessarily pro-liberal or anti-Bush, but pro-scandal and anti-informational).

Note that on the screen (and in the transcript), they put my period inside the parens, instead of outside. I should sue for misrepresentation.