Time's Karen Tumulty described an “underplayed story of the day”:

On A17 of the Washington Post: The U.S. Attorney scandal now has a new prosecutor of its own, after a scathing report confirms that there were, indeed, political motives at work in the firings.

A17? That is, indeed, an underplayed story.

You know who else has underplayed it? Time magazine. Tumulty's post is the only Swampland mention of the “scathing report” that “confirms” the central question of the scandal: that the Bush administration fired the U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. Time's web page has no other mentions of the report, other than a reprint of an Associated Press article.

But that's nothing new: Time has been underplaying this story for more than a year and a half. When the scandal first broke in January 2007, Time Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney mocked liberals for “seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist.” He and his magazine then ignored the story for months, leaving the journalism to Josh Marshall and the TPM crew, among others.

And Time continues to underplay the story to this day, even as Tumulty chides the Washington Post for burying its coverage on page A17.