Rep. Hoekstra channels Joe McCarthy

Michigan Republican Peter Hoekstra made the news a couple of weeks ago when, alongside Senator Rick Santorum, he falsely alleged that we had discovered WMDs in Iraq. He did it again when he appeared to be criticizing the administration for breaking the law in their domestic spying programs.

Did his conscience finally get the best of him? 'Fraid not. Apparently he was angling for a role in the equally bogus attacks on the the press for publishing "classified" information, like the monitoring of bank records that the president first mentioned publicly more than four years ago. Like the White House, his goal isn't upholding the law, but punishing anyone who doesn't advance the Bush agenda.

The Bush administration is preparing a crackdown on intelligence leaks to the media and will try to pursue prosecutions in some recent cases, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda.

"More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations," he said.

"I don't have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility," he added.

"Not that I have any evidence, but you're in cahoots with terrorists." How many months to go 'till the elections?