Underreported Story of the Day

Maybe this one should be Forgotten Story of the Day. It's the holiday season on your calendar, but the final weeks before big political contests are also the season for political dirty tricks--usually carried out well under the radar, and discovered, if at all, only after it is too late to do anything about them.

Remember the 2002 New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal? Over at TPMmuckraker, Paul Kiel tells us that the GOP consultant who engineered the operation (and spent 90 days in jail for it) has written a new tell-all book that actually tells all. ("How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative" by Allen Raymond is set to go on sale January 8, which also happens to be the day of the New Hampshire primary.)

And speaking of that 2002 scandal, Greg Gordon at McClatchy had this story a few days ago:

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has demanded an explanation from Attorney General Michael Mukasey.