Dang, I may have to break down and turn on the teevy

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Boy, do I hate watching Gooper-co-opted “network news” in the Age of Bush. But if what this promises comes to pass, I’m gonna hafta dust off that set and make an exception.

Last month, folo visited Alabama (here and here), trying to account for the extremely high odor of Rove-and-Gonzales in the case of former Governor Don Siegelman. Well-sir, now Tommy Stevenson, associate editor at The Tuscaloosa News, blogs:

I’m getting reports from all over that CBS’s “60 Minutes” is gathering information in Alabama about the case of incarcerated former Gov. Don Siegelman. …

One of the several contacts Stevenson cites, “someone who was close to Siegelman and has been working diligently to get him out of prison by any legal means necessary,” emails in part:

“They started working on it about two months ago. They have conducted some 15 or 16 interviews. They have talked to all the lawyers, some family, and have been unable to get permission from Justice to interview Don. They have interviewed [Siegelman attorney and former U.S. Attorney] Doug Jones, Republican AG from Arizona Grant Woods, and [Alabama U.S. Rep.] Artur Davis. It will be very comprehensive in it’s scope, covering the questions about the direction of the investigation and including the main question which is ‘was the convicted charge a crime?’”

Among the thrusts of the story, Stevenson judges from what he’s hearing from various folk, may be: the players in the trial that sent the popular Dem governor to federal prison for seven years; the partisan Republican political histories of both the prosecutors and the judge in the case, as well as the fact that “18 months post-verdict, [Federal Judge Mark] Fuller still has not ordered the production of an official trial transcript”; a comparison of Siegelman’s conviction for trading a state board appointment for a campaign donation to alleged similar behavior by the current Republican governor; and the negative television ads that former lieutenant governor Steve Windom ran against Siegelman in 2002. And, says the Siegelman supporter, “I do know that they were toying with also highlighting the coverage the [Birmingham] and Mobile Papers have provided in support of the prosecutors” (who have “given interview after interview in Alabama” but ain’t about to talk to “60 Minutes”).

At least four “60 Minutes” producers have been working in-state for the last few weeks, says a “local political operative” who tells Stevenson he was contacted by one of them. “Air date is scheduled for no later than early December,” according to another Stevenson source.

Harper’s Scott Horton, my guru on all things Siegelman-case, hasn’t weighed in on this development yet, but when he does, I’ll update. Something tells me he’s gonna be a tad happified too.

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