Jane Harman - Did She Throw the 2004 Election to Bush?

Surely Harman would have known she was saving Bush's butt by doing this:

The New York Times confirmed late Monday that a top Democratic congresswoman called the paper in 2004 and tried to keep it from publishing an article exposing the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program -- possibly helping to sway the balance in the 2004 presidential election.

The New York Times exposed the warrantless wiretapping program in 2005, revealing that the National Security Agency had engaged in the interception of thousands of American and foreign calls without a warrant as part of a program intended to disrupt terrorist plots. Upon running the story, they also admitted that they had withheld the article for a year at the urging of Bush Administration officials.

But buried in a Times article published Tuesday is the revelation that the top Democratic congresswoman on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman (D-CA), called the paper’s Washington, D.C. editor in “October or November” of 2004 in an effort to quash the story.

“Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004,” the Times writes. “Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman -- apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director -- and urged that The Times not publish the article.”

I haven't taken a look yet, but I seem to recall that the administration at the time before the election was still in full on denial mode about the fact they were spying on everyone, 4th amendment be damned.

If this attempt by Harman was from before the election, she would have to have known that she was trying to influence the election in Bush's favor just to protect the illegal spying program.

Aside from the fact that she may be a target of baddies in the CIA or Bush administration now, her trying to quash this revelation by the Times is not forgivable.