Yep, it was a perfect example of the Dems reliance on a cooperative media. Kerry/Edwards knew it was over by then. They needed to buy time for the lawyers to tell them whether they could pull another Gore. Edwards comes out and gives the MSM their talking points.
As I recall, when Edwards appeared it started pouring down rain as more and more of the audience shrunk away. If that had been a Republican, the media would have gone into overdrive working the metaphor for collapse. But they had their marching orders and dutifully backed off calling Ohio/Nevada/NM/Colorado for Bush.
I laughed how long most of the MSM networks refused to call Ohio for Bush. As I recall Fox and NBC called it for him sometime around midnight but the rest just couldn't bring themselves to do it. It was great watching them grasp at straws.