Slate article significance: Wilson first suggested Rove was behind the leak. Here we have Cooper talking to Time magazine reporters and editors about his conversation with ROVE .... TIME LATER GOES ON TO QUESTION ROVE'S INVOLVEMENT ..

Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year. The story concludes: "The result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection."

What happened with Woodward provides us with a great opportunity to discuss what's happened to investigative journalism. Here are some questions for a future roundtable: When are journalists acting like journalists, and when are they acting as enablers? When are they using their sources, and when are they being used by them? Who is being served by the granting of anonymity -- the public or the powers that be? Woodward is simply the purest distillation of what journalism has been reduced to in Washington: the thirst for access -- not to better serve the public, but to better serve the journalist. Access as an end, not a means, access resulting in little details ("dressed casually in a handsome green wool shirt") that make the reader feel part of history and, even more important, make the journalist sound like part of history, with all the perks that flow from that -- book contracts and TV appearances and speaking engagements. This is the access that validates the journalist as player rather than the journalist as truth-seeker.