When the White House allegedly pressured CBS not to air its 60 Minutes report on the Don Siegelman case, the report had about as much hope of seeing the light of day again as its subject. 

Well, CBS ultimately did air the report … opposite the Oscars (did they miss the deadline to play opposite the Super Bowl or something?)  OK, at least it aired on a national broadcast … unless you happened to live in Alabama, where Siegelman was once Governor and was fairly elected for an additional term before the vote was mysteriously switched, and Siegelman was framed, imprisoned  and scuttled away by Alabama authorities to undisclosed locations where he was prevented from speaking to his family and/or the press.  Evidently a number of CBS affiliates in Alabama declined to air the report, and fingerpointing is flying back and forth between local stations and Big CBS to explain that.

If you want to see an eye-opening story of how anyone can be sent to the Gulag on trumped up charges right here in the US and A, the full segment and transcripts are available at CBS.com.  The following excerpt comes from Crooks and Liars:  

(Grant) Woods is one of the 52 former state
attorneys-general, of both parties, who’ve asked Congress to
investigate the Siegelman case.

“I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted
Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was
a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid
of,” Woods says.

Now a Republican lawyer from Alabama, Jill Simpson, has
come forward to claim that the Siegelman prosecution was part of a
five-year secret campaign to ruin the governor. Simpson told 60 Minutes
she did what’s called “opposition research” for the Republican party.
She says during a meeting in 2001, Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior
political advisor, asked her to try to catch Siegelman cheating on his
wife. [..]

She says she spied on Siegelman for months but saw nothing. Even
though she was working as a Republican campaign operative, Simpson says
she wanted to talk to 60 Minutes because Siegelman’s prison sentence bothers her conscience.

Simpson says she wasn’t surprised that Rove made this request. Asked
why not, she tells Pelley, “I had had other requests for intelligence
before.”

“From Karl Rove?” Pelley asks.

“Yes,” Simpson says.

Rove involved in a scheme like this?  What a shocker!  (In the US Attorney firings scandal, one does begin to question what acting “Bushie” US Attorneys had to do to keep their jobs…)

What’s more, evidently, 60 Minutes has several follow-up reports to this story but will not air them unless the public shows interest.  There’s a talkback and a “contact us” tab on the CBS page linked to above where you can let them know if you’re interested in delving further into this bizarre and terrible tale of power excess and corruption. 

And while I’m at it, kudos to Taxi to the Dark Side on winning Best Documentary at the Oscars after being unceremoniously $#itcanned by Discovery Channel.

Update: The good news is that since 60 Minutes piece aired, Alabama Democrats are now calling for a special prosecutor in this case.