Ah, That Liberal Media

The staff writers at the Los Angeles Times did a wonderful job on Thursday summing up everything that's been reported so far on the Plame/Wilson/Rove affair. They even provided a handy timeline. Though the article doesn't contain a lot of new information, I found the following passage to be interesting:

"Fitzgerald also asked for something unusual: a generic
waiver of confidentiality agreements from all White
House employees for the journalists with whom they
spoke during the period in dispute. When most reporters
made it clear that the generic waiver was unacceptable
because it was viewed as coercive, the prosecutor worked
with individual sources, reporters and their lawyers to
get their testimony. Pincus testified after being assured
that he would not have to name his source, even though
Fitzgerald knew who it was. Washington Post reporter
Glenn Kessler and NBC's Tim Russert also testified after
getting assurances from Libby. After reading about their
testimony, Cooper approached Libby about a waiver for
himself. Without a personal waiver, Cooper and his
editors believed they could not reveal the source — which
meant that the news organization would join the New York
Times in a losing court battle. Cooper did not ask Rove for
a waiver, in part because his lawyer advised against it. In
addition, Time editors were concerned about
becoming part of such an explosive story in an
election year. Rove's attorney, meantime, took the view
that contacting Cooper would have amounted to
interfering with the ongoing court battle between
reporter and prosecutor. Although Fitzgerald said
Cooper's testimony was necessary to conclude his
investigation, he did not ask Rove to give the reporter
a waiver, according to Rove's attorney, Luskin. The
result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed
nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection.
'The reason this resolution was delayed had nothing
to do with anything Karl [Rove] did or failed to do,'
he said."

So let me see if I understand this. Cooper and his bosses at Time proactively sought a waiver from Libby to allow Cooper to testify about their conversations, but when they were subsequently subpoenaed for information about a similar conversation with Rove--who had already signed a general waiver identical to Libby's--they did absolutely nothing. They didn't even try to get permission from Rove for Cooper to testify (permission, he apparently would have granted). After all, they didn't want to be involved in "an explosive story during an election year." God forbid! Is it possible that fear of the dreaded "liberal bias" charge played a role here? Did Time choose to sit on a story that might well have significantly impacted the election? After all, Cooper and his lawyer did approach Rove for a waiver eventually, and Cooper immediately thereafter told Time's readers everything he knew. Too bad that by then it was 2005 and Bush had been narrowly reelected.

The other part of this passage that caught my attention was Luskin's assertion that Fitzgerald never asked Rove to give Cooper a personal waiver. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around that. Fitzgerald clearly was not reluctant to ask for waivers; he required nearly everyone in the administration to sign one. And in his pursuit of testimony about Libby, he clearly reached out and brokered arrangements with reporters to get them to talk. Moreover, Fitzgerald's second subpoena to Cooper called for testimony about a specific conversation between Cooper and Rove. According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Specifically, the prosecutor wanted Mr. Cooper
to confirm that Mr. Rove was a source of information
about Ms. Plame. Within weeks, Mr. Cooper had a
second subpoena in hand."

So Fitzgerald knew that Cooper's only possible reason for not testifying was because he had not received a personal waiver from Rove. Cooper's refusal to testify stalled the investigation for over a year. Why would Fitzgerald not ask Rove to provide Cooper with a personal waiver? This just doesn't make any sense to me. Is there some legal angle to this that I'm missing? Is there some reason why Fitzgerald cannot or would not make such a request? Can anyone explain this to me? I have a hunch that the answer to this question is relevant to Judith Miller's situation as well.