Remember that letter earlier this week from Reps. Conyers and Chabot? Sure you do, many folks almost had a coronary when the stocks dipped because of it.

Well, it turns out that it all likely was just political posturing, and had little to do with merger afterall. Hidden in an article yesterday, the New York Post's own sources say exactly that:

One Washington, DC, source said the letter probably had less to do with the Sirius-XM merger itself and was more an attempt to put Mukasey, who replaced Alberto Gonzalez as attorney general, on notice that the Democrats were prepared to fight a Republican-controlled attorney general's office on issues such as big business deals.

Great, politics as usual. So that letter was really just a shot across the bow. And the further this drags on, the more and more politics will come into play as we go full steam into election season.

Janco Partners analyst April Horace gave CNN Money some thoughts about what could be going on over at the Justice Department:

“I would assume the DOJ is going back and making sure that the review process has crossed all their Ts and dotted all their Is. So a decision may get delayed."

Wonderful.

[New York Post, CNN Money]

Yes, that's a double-negative in the headline. In other words Uncle Walt, the leader of all tech writers, isn't necessarily against the Slacker Portable, but he's also not in love with it... yet.

Walt Mossberg (who yelled the infamous words, "I don't give a fuck about your stock price!" at XM's former CEO Hugh Panero a few years back) overall seemed to find the Slacker service/player intriguing. His biggest problem - granted, it was a prototype he was playing with - was the bugs that need to be worked out of the player.

"The two prototype Slacker units I tried, however, were hobbled by bugs and glitches that the company must expunge by the release date, which was originally slated to be this month. For instance, the players sometimes failed to wake up after going to sleep, requiring a reboot. The touch strip was unreliable. One player failed several times to connect to my account. Battery life is well below Slacker’s goal of 12 hours between charges. The company says it is aware of these problems, and pledges all will be fixed."

Which explains why the Slacker Portable player has been delayed. Still Mossberg seems to like what he sees so far, but his hope for the service itself is that the ads aren't too annoying.

One interesting thing to note: he compared the Slacker service to Rhapsody and of course to Sirius and XM:

"And both the Sirius and XM satellite-radio networks offer portable players for listening to their stations, although the stations can’t be customized."

I think that's an important distinction. Slacker is meant for consumers who have no desire to program entire playlists of music - but it still has an easy way to customize the music you're listening to.

Satellite Radio on the other hand has absolutely no interactivity. There is a growing desire by consumers to increase control over their media experiences. Sirius and XM need to come up with solution for this, to create the feeling of interaction and control, because the influence of this trend in consumers' thinking is significant and real. I'm not sure how, I just know what, needs to be done to adapt for future trends.

But I digress.

Watch Mossberg's quickie video review below...

[All Things Digital]

Whether or not the merger with Sirius goes through, Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes still doesn't like XM, and downgraded shares of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. from Neutral to Sell this morning.

"We could be wrong in the near-term, if the DOJ approves the proposed merger," says Wienkes. “That said, our downgrade is valuation based and contemplates possible short-term price swings whether the DOJ approves or rejects."

"Deal or no deal, we think the current valuation incorporates a view too close to optimal, e.g. DOJ and FCC approvals with few conditions and subsequently, near-certain realization of all potential synergies,” added Wienkes.

Bottom line: “With the majority of the upside baked in, we recommend investors sell XMSR.”

And what about Sirius? Pretty much just like XM, only worse, says Winkes: "In our view, SIRI (Sell) shares are subject to the same merger issues as XMSR shares coupled with a less favorable business model and trends."

[Barrons, Silicon Alley Insider]