'Vanity Fair' Rips Media 'Conspiracy' in Covering Up Role in Plame Scandal

In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media -- principally Time magazine and The New York Times -- who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been “one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.” Not only that, “they helped cover it up.” You might say, he adds, they “became part of a conspiracy.”

If they had burned this unworthy source and exposed his “crime,” he adds, it would have been “of such consequences that it might, reasonably, have presaged the defeat of the president, might have even -- to be slightly melodramatic -- altered the course of the war in Iraq.” In doing so they showed they owed their greatest allegiance to the source, not their readers.

According to state law, don't psychiatrists have to report patients who speak of crimes? But if Time and the NY Times caved and turned in their source(s), could this have set a precedent of many fewer such sources coming forward in the future, thus allowing perhaps more criminal acts to go unnoticed?

One thing is for sure: don't EVER again allow a r-winger to get away with saying the NY Times is "pinko" liberal. Does it lean left? Duh. But has it shown repeatedly the willingness to help out the right-wing (in a big way I might add)? Absolutely. You have this act above contributing to the start of the Iraq invasion, but you also have their frequent and persistent Whitewater trash stories that plagued the Clintons for years (all amounting to zero).

Where's the equivalent on FOX News, the NY Post, Washington Times, etc.?