The Matt Show: Hype Hopes
We wonder what the mood is like at the TIME offices today. Not only did the NYT slam them in the business section -- "a lifestyle bible that often leaves the more ambitious stories to others" -- but a story in the A section indicates Matt Cooper's rescue from the brink of jail "in a somewhat dramatic fashion" was not a deus ex machina but a deus ex lawyer:
Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser. The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
What's more, it looks like this "frenzy" of phone calls could have been carried out in a more leisurely fashion, since the permission Luskin granted to Cooper Wednesday simply repeated what has been true since January: Rove was fine with Cooper testifying. Of course he was: Cooper's own emails suggest that Rove didn't reveal the name of Joe Wilson's wife. The real scandal of this story may be that Cooper's source for "Valerie Plame" was Robert Novak.
Why did we care about this again?
Next TIME cover: 180 Days to 'Wow'! The Judy Miller Prison Diet.
UPDATE: This probably went well, huh?:
Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine, who says that he alone made the decision, was scheduled to meet with Time magazine's Washington bureau today to discuss internal unease, according to people familiar with the situation. He will be joined by Time Inc. Editorial Director John Huey and Time magazine Managing Editor Jim Kelly. [ WSJ ]
A Tough Call, and Then Consequences [NYT]
For Time Inc. Reporter, a Frenzied Decision to Testify [NYT]