Passport-Gate?

This could be a small story, or it could be a big story. Here's the breaking news tonight-

Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport file, and the department is investigating whether political or other motives were involved, senior officials said Thursday.

Spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information...

Talking Points Memo adds this context: "the breaches occurred Jan. 9th, Feb. 21st and March 14th. That would be the day after the New Hampshire primary, the day of the Democratic debate in Texas and the day the Wright story really hit. "

Some further context... there was a similar incident in 1992 when "a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. The State Department's inspector general said the official had helped arrange the search in an attempt to find politically damaging information about Clinton." It remains to be seen what the motivations were with these new incidents. The Obama campaign has asked for a full investigation.

MSNBC and Keith Olbermann were all over all this story tonight. Video- Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

[UPDATE: Details are slim, but TPM is trying to figure this all out. Now... Clinton too??!

Glenn Greenwald has a good analysis on the larger implications of all of this.]