The news about Nancy Pelosi passing over Alcee Hastings for the Chairmanship of the House Intel Committee came out last night, but in this morning's Washington Post Jonathan Weisman and Peter Slevin do a final smack down of Hastings' claims of innocence in much the same way Byron York did yesterday. Weisman and Slevin write:

He [Hastings] pointed repeatedly to his 1983 acquittal by a Miami jury and wrote that it is "amazing how little importance" his critics give that verdict. The events that followed that trial, he said, "are so convoluted, voluminous, complex and mundane that it would boggle the mind."

In fact, there is a certain simplicity in the conclusion drawn by an investigating committee of five eminent federal judges, each with strong civil rights credentials. Those judges, and later more than three dozen others, concluded that Hastings lied to the Miami jury as many as 15 times to win acquittal.

So who's it going to be? The three candidates being mentioned are Silvestre Reyes, Norm Dicks, and Sanford Bishop. Rush Holt is also in the mix.

Dicks says he hasn't talked to anyone about the Intel Chairmanship and he's not interested besides.

Reyes is the next most senior member on the committee after Hastings, but one can only imagine the anger directed at Pelosi by Congressional Black Caucus, first for ousting William Jefferson and now for passing on Hastings.That would seem to make Bishop a reasonable compromise, especially since he was orgininally bounced from the Intel Committee to seat Harman.