It's simply not possible that this was a simple slip-up.
The Washington Post published on its front page today a story about GOP leaders Frist and Hastert. The two gentlemen are demanding a congressional investigation of the leak of classified information that led to the Post's publishing last week's story revealing the US is running a bunch of gulags (my word) at former Soviet prison camps in Eastern Europe. Frist and Hastert claim to be upset about the leak, but basically they're hoping a Dem leaked the info and want to nail him.
Here's where things get very strange. Yesterday, within hours of the news that Frist and Hastert were going to seek the investigation, Trent Lott talks to the press and says that he thinks a GOP Senator, staffer, or maybe even VP Cheney leaked the info. Lott isn't just conjecturing - rather, he said the GOP Senators were brief about the camps, by Cheney, the day before the Post ran the story.
Sen. Trent Lott stunned reporters by saying that the issue of secret CIA prisons was discussed at a Republican-only lunch, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, last Tuesday, the day before the Washington Post reported the story. Lott said of the Washington Post story, "a lot of it came out of that room on Tuesday" and he said of his Senate Republican colleagues, "we can'?t keep our mouths shut." [CNN, The Situation Room, 11/8/05]The networks yesterday, dutifully, covered the Lott revelations as big news.
The revelation that Trent Lott pointed the finger, with evidence, back at the GOP or Cheney himself is a massive twist to this story. Yet somehow, the Wash Post reports on this story today and leaves out the single most important fact, that the former Republican Senate leader has said a GOP Senator, staffer or the VP himself may be to blame. That isn't mentioned anywhere in the story. How is that?
I don't believe that the Post is up to some kind of partisan subterfuge here. But I also don't believe that it's a simple oversight. You would have to be brain dead to not have heard about Trent Lott's allegations yesterday. So the only possible conclusion is that the Post's editors decided expressly NOT to include the mention of Trent Lott in the story. But why? Short of a blatantly partisan effort to protect the GOP, which I don't buy, it just doesn't make journalistic sense. In fact, the Lott allegations ARE the story. They clearly deserve the second or third paragraph of this rather long article.
So what happened? A good issue for the Washington Post's new ombudsman to investigate.
PS The video of Lott saying this was flying around the Internet by 5:15pm. So he said it earlier, a good bit earlier. The Post should have had ample time to get it in their story.
