As Paul Kiel reported earlier today at TPMmuckraker, in Friday’s paper the New York Times has taken what I imagine is the unprecedented step or printing an oped piece with the redactions demanded by the White House actually included as blacklines in the text. Here’s the redacted Oped. Here’s Paul’s piece from this afternoon. And here’s authors’ explanation.

In case you missed Rep. Virgil Goode’s appearances on Fox News today in which he discussed opposition to the Koran and refused to say whether he thought there were already too many people from the Middle East in the US, you can see it here.

Lovely.

According to Network World’s Paul McNamara, the communications director for U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Todd Shriber, hired two ‘hackers’ to break into the computer of his alma mater, Texas Christian University, and change his college grades.

He went trolling for the law-breaking ‘hackers’ on a computer security website. But instead of finding anyone to do his dirty work he came across a couple non-criminally minded techies who proceeded to chat him up about his scheme, draw out in explicit detail that what he was asking them to do involved mulitple felonies and then posted their complete email correspondence on the site, attrition.org.

This all happened back in September. But it was apparently only this week that McNamara, who has a blog at the Network World site, figured out who Todd Shriber was and started trying to get the guy on the record about what the hell he was thinking.

After what was apparently a good deal of prodding, Shriber told McNamara: “I did something that’s greatly out of character for me and it’s a mistake that I regret.” Asked why he attempted this criminal enterprise: “”I would rather not get into that at all. I just got a little too far ahead of myself thinking about things down the road.”

I’m tempted to stop there. But the correspondence is just too good in comedy terms and shows that not only does Shriber probably lack the ethical fiber to serve in Congress (I guess that can mean more than one thing) but may also be the stupidest person on the planet.

Here’s Shriber’s first solicitation …

I came across Attrition.org for the first time. I enjoyed the site though I am not an expert
with computers. That brings me to my next point: I need to urgently make contact with a hacker that would be interested in doing a one-time job for me. The pay would be good. I’m not sure what exactly the job would entail with respect to computer jargon, but I can go into rough detail upon making contact with a candidate. Thanks for your help.

After he gets the first nibble he assures the ‘hacker’ he’s talking to that …

the job wouldn’t be anything like invading a government mainframe for classified documents or stealing money from a bank. Rather it’d be a modification of some personal data.

Then he puts his cards on the table …

OK here it is: I need an adjustment to my college GPA. Is this an absurd request?

It pretty much goes down hill from there, with the highlight probably being the request for pictures. The ‘hackers’ ask for pictures of the campus with squirrels and pigeons to make sure he’s ‘legit’. He says he doesn’t live near campus anymore. Remember, he lives in DC, not Texas. So they tell him any picture of a pigeon or squirrel will do. Don’t ask. You’ve got to read it to believe it.

Here’s the picture of a squirrel (looks like near the Capitol) that this imbecile Shriber sent in …

The whole thing is so amazingly ridiculous that I would be sure the whole thing was a hoax, except a reporter for a legit computer trade publication looked into it and it checked out and he even got the congressional staffer to ‘fess up.

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader MT, who solicited no criminal acts, for the tip.)

Curt Weldon got a letter from the government the other day. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.

Okay, here it is: Over at Election Central, we’ve compiled a massive guide to all the staffers and advisers hired thus far by all the 2008 Presidential campaigns.

We’ll be updating the list constantly with new hires — and firings — throughout the campaign. These people will play a key role in determining the shape and storylines of the 2008 contest, so why not know who they are?

Can you help us?

We’re trying to find what I guess is the December 2006 equivalent of the needle in the haystack: any Republican who will give us a comment on Rep. Virgil Goode’s opposition to the Koran and people from the Middle East in general.

I’ve got Justin Rood putting in calls to everyone. And you can see the rather meager results so far here.

I’ve told Justin that he can’t leave work today or even celebrate Christmas until he gets some GOP leader to comment or say anything about Goode. So if you know any GOP leader, or really any Republican member of Congress who’s spoken out or willing to give a comment about Goode’s fears that Congress is going to be overrun by Muslims, let us know.

Do it for Justin.

Rudy to give big GOP keynote speech in New Hampshire next month.

Breaking: In our on-going search for a Republican member of Congress to comment on the No-Goode-Koran story, a spokesperson for Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) promises to look into it!

Not hard to see that one coming. Todd Shriber, communications director for Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), just got canned.

Shriber’s the one who rather haplessly tried to hire a ‘hacker’ to change his GPA on his alma mater’s mainframe and also went around DC trying to photograph a squirrel to confirm his identity. Don’t even get me started. You can read what happened here.

Justin’s racing against the clock to save (his) Christmas. The latest is that he at least got a roundabout buzz-off from Rep. Aderholt’s (R-AL) spokesperson when asked for a comment on the Goode-Koran imbroglio. “We haven’t seen the letter.”