I wish I had time to look into this more thoroughly

With three 7 AM teleconferences over the next three days, it's going to be kind of light blogging around here. Here's how it works most days: I get up at 5 AM, have coffee and check out what Buzzflash is aggregatiing. Then I take a quick gander at the New York Times and some other sites, then decide what to take on during the slightly-over-an-hour that I have before getting ready to go to work.

I've been reading a bit about this business with Rep. Jane Harman being wiretapped talking to some AIPAC guy who may or may not be an Israeli spy. This whole thing seems to have originated with this article at CQ Politics, and those who have the time in the morning to dig into such things because someone pays them to do so instead of braving New Jersey highways and spending the day as a cube rat have been on the case this week here, here, here, and here.

But what really got my paranoid little brain going was when Greg Sargent, who is well-known in SANE circles as a go-to guy for the straight poop, gave voice to one of the larger implications of this story, which is that Jane Harman may very well have successfully lobbied the New York Times to NOT publish a big expos&eeacute; they had ready about George W. Bush's illegal surveillance program right before the 2004 election -- a story that given how close that election was, may very well have tipped the scales away from Captain Codpiece had more voters known what their president was doing to them.

Sargent explains:

So Dem Rep Harman appears to have worked behind the scenes to dissuade publication of a blockbuster expose about Bush that could have put her own party’s nominee in the White House and changed the history of the last four years. And, according to Keller, she apparently did this at the request of Michael Hayden, Bush’s National Security Agency chief.

My impression is that there's another aspect to this story, having to do with some kind of deal that Harman may have cut with Bush Administration officials to reduce charges against these AIPAC guys in return for support for the Administration's wiretap program.

And did I mention that Jane Harman is a DEMOCRAT? With allies like this, who needs opposition?

Anyway, unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with this, so I'm going to have to kick you over to Greg Sargent for updates.