The great document quest continues

We've been following (makes it sound like I have a staff, but I don't) the saga of Daily Standard reporter Stephen Hayes's quest to get his hands on captured Iraqi government documents seized by the coalition after the fall of Baghdad. You may recall that some of those docs had amazing 'smoking gun' titles.

Shortly after Hayes' last column, Newsweek issued a retort of sorts, with a short column that poo-poo'ed the document quest and told us to move along, nothing to see. Thing is, Hayes talked to doc handlers, Newsweek talked to ubiqitous 'unidentified sources'.

In his latest column, a narrative entitled travels with Cheney, Hayes slipped in this paragraph:

That effort will likely include the release of documents and other materials captured in postwar Iraq. In recent weeks, senior Bush administration and intelligence officials have been discussing several plans to expedite the public release of those materials. According to officials familiar with their contents, the documents provide an unfiltered look inside a criminal regime that brutalized its own citizens, bought off numerous European politicians, and provided significant support to transregional terrorists.

Interesting preview of coming attractions.

It's not hard to imagine Rove being involved here in some way. Perhaps he suggested patience in releasing anything until enough congressional dems staked out anti-war positions. He's been known to use that suck-em-in then roast-em approach before. This could explain why a cunning Hillary never really took a decipherable position.

I'm not holding my breath about any WMD revelations, though. Unlike the ties to terrorists or other tangential items that might come out, the WMD issue is dead serious and perhaps still in play. That's why Bush has spent considerable time and defied conventional wisdom in his attempts to stop leaks about our monitoring of people who might be giving or taking orders in that department.

UPDATE 12/27

Powerline reports that Hayes will be a guest on the Hannity radio show Wednesday (the 28th). For those who can hardly stomach Sean, which I'm, he's on vacation and Scott Hennen will be guest-hosting and question-asking. Fortunately for those of us in the Mid South area, Mr. Hayes will appear during the 3:00pm CST hour, as 600 WREC-AM cuts the last hour of Hannity's show for the Mike Fleming program.

MORE 12/29

Well, I missed Hayes on the Hannity show yesterday. If anyone heard it and cares to share, I'd appreciate a brief email.

Otherwise, the caper continues. The Weekly Standard mentions that a cadre of Congressmen are now on board and demanding the docs. Negroponte is not excited about releasing them. Wonder why?

Could it be that Newsweek was correct, 'nothing to see here'? Doubtful, I'm sure there's plenty to see. Another Rove trick? Maybe, but I'm beginning to think not. It's more likely the documents do indeed show many smoking gun linkages, but also show other linkages the adminstration would rather not divulge, things having to do with realpolitik. Once the pandora's box has been opened, they all become fair game.