Borger: Armitage a 'Big Yawn' Since Media Looking for 'Huge Story' of Rove Indictment

On CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday morning, Gloria Borger, CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent and U.S. News columnist, conceded that the revelation that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was who leaked the fact that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, “was sort of a big yawn” to the news media “and why we didn't cover it that much, is because, first of all, everybody was anticipating a Karl Rove indictment, and that would have been a huge, huge story.” So, when “Karl Rove was not indicted, the air went out of the balloon at that particular point.” To put it mildly. Host Howard Kurtz called media coverage of Rove “overheated,” suggesting that “a lot of journalists practically had the date circled on the calendar when he might be charged."

The CBS Evening News at least ran a story, unlike the ABC and NBC evening newscasts, but a very skewed and incomplete report, as detailed in my September 7 NewsBusters item, “CBS Interviews Armitage, But Skips Rove and Asks if He Owes Apology to Wilson?” (Brief transcript of Borger's exchange with Kurtz follows)

From the September 17 Reliable Sources, aired live at 10am EDT, with David Corn of The Nation in the DC studio with Borger and John Fund of OpinionJournal.com via remote from New York City as the other guests in the segment:

Gloria Borger: “I'll tell you why the Richard Armitage thing was sort of a big yawn and why we didn't cover it that much, is because, first of all, everybody was anticipating a Karl Rove indictment, and that would have been a huge, huge story. Top adviser to the President, Scooter Libby, top adviser to the Vice President had already been indicted for lying."

Howard Kurtz: “And that was overheated, by the way. You know, mean sure, he was certainly vulnerable and he testified four or five times, but you know a lot of journalists practically had the date circled on the calendar when he might be charged.”

Borger: “And the blogs had been blogging, 'oh Karl Rove's gonna get indicted.' Well, guess what? Karl Rove was not indicted. The air went out of the balloon at that particular point.”