Two big stories on TSP, and both just happen to "technically" exonerate Gonzales

I find myself pretty skeptical this evening reading the two big stories in the NYTimes and Washington Post on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Neither contains any blockbuster new information, but both contain technical exonerations of Gonzales' apparent perjury this week on the Hill.

NYTimes: "If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct."

WaPo: "The report of a data mining component to the dispute suggests that Gonzales's assertion could be technically correct."

I don't know enough to challenge these statements, but the timing of these exonerating "leaks" to hit the papers before the Sunday talk shows smells pretty bad.

People in the White House are apparently willing to leak classified information to defend Fredo.

Think they'll call for investigations into these leakers these way they did with the secret prisons and Dana Priest?

(Josh Marshall has a pretty good look at the underlying programs.)