Red herring spying story?

* the author of the USAT article was on lehrer:

LESLIE CAULEY: This program is referring to in-country calls only, meaning calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders. There is no eavesdropping as part of this particular program.

for the record, I wasn't totally focussed on the teeve when she said this and i had assumed that when i went to the transcript that i'd find that she was an administration hack - so i was surprised to learn that she is the author of the piece. she totally sounded like she was defending the administration (again, i wasnt really focused).

Tom Maguire says:

Leslie Cauley is heavy talent coming out of left field, as it were - we infer a telecom background (rather than national security) from the fact that she has published a book on the breakup of ATT; her bio notes three Pulitzer nominations (with a fourth coming, we have no doubt):

Leslie Cauley is a telecom writer for USA Today. She has been a business journalist for more than twenty years, spending nine years as a staff writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. Over the course of her career, Ms. Cauley has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times. She lives in Manhattan.

I'm not one for baseless conspiracy-ing or anything (!) - but here's a baseless, unsubstantiated thought. We know that Bush 'rushed out' with a response, and as Maguire notes, the USAT is an odd place for such a scoop, and the USAT article didn't mention that the administration tried to hold up the article (which the NYT stated in Risen's article), and here she is using Luntz-honed verbiage on Lehrer, seemingly defending the program (as I said, I presumed she was a WH flack when i heard her).

Is it possible that this USAT article was an inoculation piece? (there's much evidence to the contrary mind you) The wingnuts were complaining in unison about the timing of the article wrt Hayden's nomination and all that - but I wonder if there wasnt a heads-up that something even worse was coming out.

I must admit, when i first read the article last night (my time), before the brouhaha, I noticed that the article kept stepping back from the edge. In fact I don't even think I blogged about it last night for that very reason.

Having said that, as you know, I've been looking at the issue in depth in researching the (still) upcoming interview with Larisa and have been looking closely into what Russ Tice is saying, and what O'Harrow and Risen are saying - so I'm more than aware of the outer-limits of the programs.

Hmmm - I've almost talked myself into the idea that this USAT article really was a pre-hit, or a 'deflator.'

Perhaps it was rushed out because of Inman's comments on Monday (although they went largely unreported), or perhaps Risen or some other journo was about to issue another major piece (you can be sure the egadministration got the heads-up if that was the case). If that's the case, I'm sure there's a furious journo out there somewhere tonight.

What say you? am I crazy, or onto something? I guess we'll soon know.

(the photo is from the Lehrer's page about this story. funny)

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update from the comments: CS notes that this memo from the Dems in the HPSCI says:

"None of us misses the irony that leaks about the program are coming from the Executive Branch, not us. "