The kabuki dance around accountability for the torture memos, torture itself, and much elseis captured in this account at the Congressional Quarterly.http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000003098436&cpage=1Why is Congress dragging its heels about investigating these matters?This story about Rep. Jane Harman (D.-CA) suggest one reason why: "Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC"Who else in Congress is on an NSC wiretap promising what to whom? And why is this being leaked as the torture memos are being released. My thought:Many Senators and Representatives signed off on torture and many other doubtfully Constituional decisions. They would be implicated in their own investigations. The CIA and the NSC are warning them that that's what will happen if these revelations go further.HT: TPMUPDATE: The Harman story has gone viral (as they say). For the truly interested here is the discussion on Pat Lang's blog. I take it that military and defense intelligence (ret.) people drop in there, and so there are some interesting elaborations on what this story may be all about. Here: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/04/jane-harmon-and-rod-blogojevich.htmlUpdate 2: Jeff Stein who broke this story in the Congressional Quarterly does not admit the it came to light now because of the torture memo release (my conjecture), or the coming AIPAC former employee trials."Sandy from Brooklyn: Why is all this stuff coming out now?Jeff Stein: No special reason. The story was not "planted" on me to influence any other events -- in particular the looming AIPAC trials or things related to the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. I've known about it for some time but just not been able to pull it together until now for various reasons."

We can read that with a grain of salt (did he get a clinching detail from an interested party thatallowed him to put ittogether?). But what he says maybe true.