Ellington

Trent Lott is clearly off the reservation in terms of White House and GOP talking points. It's possible that Bush Co. took a mis-step when they failed to support Lott after his Dixiecratgate episode. Today he told reporters that the CIA prisons story was probably the result of a GOP leak, which is embarassing to the GOP leadership that is calling for an investigation into the leak.

Top U.S. Republican lawmakers are seeking a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Post in an article on the CIA's secret global prison system, congressional aides said on Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert in a draft letter asked the intelligence committees to "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information."

Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott told reporters he thought information for the story may have come from a Republican Senate staffer.

"There's no question that there was a discussion to a Washington Post reporter by a staff person who apparently knew everything that went on there last Tuesday," Lott said, referring to a Senate Republican meeting last week.

By the way, just for the record, the GOP leaders seem awfully concerned about a leak regarding the secret CIA prison system -- a level of concern that they don't have about outing a covert CIA operative, her cover company and any contacts she may had made during a NOC career.

Both the Red Cross and the European Union have declared that they're investigating the prisons, too.

(And, in a related story, could the Fox News site look MORE like a parody of itself? WTF? Here's the Printer Friendly of the story I linked above that avoids the house ads and the amazingly stupid looking background logo wallpaper.)