MSNBC's coverage of the October 28 indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby stemming from the investigation into in the alleged outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame skewed to the right. In the hour and a half after special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's press conference announcing the indictment, until the 5 p.m. ET edition of Hardball, the coverage featured commentary from conservative media figures with a history of misinformation regarding the leak controversy, pundits, and journalists -- but no Democrats or progressives. MSNBC's imbalanced reporting on the Libby indictment follows a pattern of skewed, inaccurate coverage of the Plame controversy from MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements as part of special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the alleged leak.

With Matthews, whose own record of Plame falsehoods has been documented by Media Matters for America (here and here), MSNBC featured two known conservative media figures: former Republican presidential candidate and MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan and MSNBC host Tucker Carlson. Also featured was former presidential adviser and political pundit David Gergen, who has made several false assertions about the leak controversy. Additionally, the program included MSNBC analyst Charles V. Peña*, a senior fellow at the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy and former director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. During the broadcast, Peña, who is also a contributor to the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, discussed the national security implications of outing Plame.

Former Kenneth Starr deputy independent counsel Sol Wisenberg; and Joseph Curl, reporter for the conservative Washington Times, were also featured guests on the cable channel, along with NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC host Dan Abrams, Washington Post staff writer Dana Milbank, and presidential biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Peña was originally identified as the current director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. In fact, he is the former director of defense policy at Cato. Media Matters regrets the error. This item also originally referred to the Cato Institute as “conservative.” Cato's website states that the group promotes “the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace” and refers to its philosophy as “libertarianism” or “market liberalism.”