I just got finished watching this week's "Fox News Watch" and loony liberal Neil Gabler and American University prof Jane Hall both saw nefarious pro-conservative intent in the New York Times' decision to hold the story of President Bush's surveillance of al Qaeda operatives/affiliates inside the U.S. during the 2004 election.

They may very well be right -- but for the wrong reasons.

Do they actually think that John "I was for it before I was against it" Kerry would've been able to use this to his advantage? There hasn't been a poll done yet -- and when one is done, we'll have to see how the question is phrased -- but I'm willing to bet that aside from the Bush-haters and a few extreme civil libertarians, that most Americans would be angered to find out that the president wasn't monitoring phone calls between al Qaeda terrorists overseas and people in the United States.

Seriously, this comes out a few weeks before the 2004 election and John Kerry does what? He promises to put a stop to spying on al Qaeda? Yeah, that would convince the American public that he's strong on national defense.

Yes, maybe the Times did sit on the story for a year -- because they knew that it would only make it more difficult for their man.