The idea that such a call existed in NSA files but was not "shared" or recognized until much later (even after release of the 9/11 Commission Report), as suggested in the EW post, seems not completely implausible. That it would be covered up instead of made public due to "possible embarassment" considerations seems only par for the course for the Bush Administration. And that something Muskasey has been shown since he was appointed might reflect the existence of the call seems likely.

He forgot the playbook. He told the truth by accident. That may actually be more consistent with human nature than an assumption that he wilfully fabricated the event in order to make a speech to a peripheral audience in San Francisco in order to influence legislators in Washington -- pretty dumb if true (and certainly not to be ruled out for the Kool-Aid drinkers in the Bush Administration) but maybe more unlikely than just accidentally reciting something he had been told without thinking through whether it was publicly known.

Even accepting this as true, for sake of argument, that is still only the start of the inquiry. Congress must still get to the bottom of this. Indeed, the idea that the 9/11 Commission never looked at NSA records (and the correlative concept that nobody else had done so earlier, either) is indeed monumentally disturbing. Not to mention the idea that it was kept hidden once somebody picked up on it. And, for that matter, that if the facts are as surmised, how on earth could Mukasey be told about this but somehow NOT understand the importance to the Bush Agenda in keeping it secret? Or not clearly recognize that this is not and never was a FISA issue?

Rachel Maddow seems to have picked at this scab first. But this may be another in a notable series of Bush Administration people accidentally saying something that is true, in spite of themselves. Congress and the media needs to focus on this syndrome, because Bush is getting too many passes when it happens.

Mentioned this before upstream.

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/03/mukasey/permalink/42fd8233f798198935fb0722c37aa918.html

Of course, maybe this is indeed just another example of a member of the Bush Administration who was just flat out lying. Wouldn't be the first time.

Wouldn't you love to know which mid-level minion at Justice was tasked with finding something that could serve as a basis for saying Mukasey's reference to a pre-911 call from a known terrorist safe house had been previously disclosed publicly? And this is the best they could do?

I'll bet Joe Klein eats this up. Watch for it....

Somebody linked to an article on the AP (up on Yahoo's main news page this morning) about Mukasey. It could be "exhibit A" in GG's new book. What a disgraceful puff piece. So I tried to send a comment to either the author or the AP editors but, of course, that's not allowed on AP's website. I sent the following to the "info@AP" link, who knows where that goes:

"This morning's piece on AG Mukasey by Lara Jakes somebody is a shameful abdication of journalistic responsibility. In your rush to lionize Mukasey with a gushing portrait of what a wunnerful guy he is, AP cites to the "tearing up over 9/11" incident in San Francisco yet somehow fail to even mention that what he "teared up" over was, by all possible measures, a false, fabricated and fundamentally misleading assertion about both the "facts" recited and the relationship of those "facts" to the legal principles (FISA law) he was trying to sell.

Articles like this do nothing but simultaneously enable and hide the flagrant lawlessness of the Bush Administration and its carefully selected shills, as Muskasey has proven himself to be. Isn't the more important question why Mr. Mukasey hasn't issued a statement denouncing the Yoo torture memorandum just grudgingly made public?"

You must have missed Jay Leno the night the "Obama Bowling Story" broke, I thought he nailed it.

Leno's joke was he didn't want his President to be a good bowler. In fact, he kind of figured W was a good bowler and "probably good at darts, too" -- which didn't make him feel any more comfortable. I thought at the time this joke alone should have ended any self-respecting media attention to this; then again, I didn't think there could possibly be a second mention of Edwards' haircut by any self-respecting journalist so what do I know.

I'm not so sure, though, that what we're really dealing with is a question of whether it is a "conservative" press versus a "liberal" press on the truly important stuff like whether our country is going down the tubes. I think it's more and more evident that Colbert got it perfectly at the Press Corps dinner when he said the reason there wasn't attention given to real and significant events is because "they're SO DEPRESSING". Would these reporters rather talk about Obama's bowling/who's rich/whatever or spend column inches on the decimation of the US Constitution and the rule of law by an administration that is plainly not being challenged about it? Which will sell the soap?