‘It was just the dishonesty of it’

May 22, 2007

By now, everyone has heard all about the 2004 showdown in John Ashcroft’s hospital room. What we haven’t heard much of, however, is any kind of explanation from the Bush gang as to what transpired that night.

Press Secretary Tony Snow brushed it off last week, suggesting that Ashcroft really wasn’t that sick, and that Comey’s version of events were just “one side” of the story (he wouldn’t give the other side). A few days later, Snow’s deputy, Tony Fratto, wouldn’t even go that far, refusing to answer any questions about the confrontation. At one point, Fratto said the White House won’t even concede that the Card/Gonzales/Comey meeting occurred at all.

Newsweek fleshed out a few more details in its new issue.

After the incident, there were recriminations over what Comey portrayed as an attempt by Bush’s top lawyer and chief of staff to “take advantage” of a very ill man. Comey didn’t tell the Senate panel that the bad feelings were stoked even more the next morning when White House officials explained the hospital visit by saying Gonzales and Card were unaware that Comey was acting A.G. (and therefore the only person authorized to sign off on the surveillance program), according to a former senior DOJ official who requested anonymity talking about internal matters. (emphasis added)

Top DOJ officials were furious, the source said. Just days earlier, Justice’s chief spokesman had publicly said Comey would serve as “head of the Justice Department” while Ashcroft was ill. Justice officials had also faxed over a document to the White House informing officials of this. When a Gonzales aide claimed the counsel’s office could find no record of it, DOJ officials dug out a receipt showing the fax had been received. “People were disgusted as much as livid,” said the DOJ official. “It was just the dishonesty of it.” A Gonzales aide at the time (who asked not to be ID’d talking about internal matters) said there was a “miscommunication” and “genuine confusion” over who was in charge.

Oh, you mean when the Attorney General is incapacitated due to a serious health problem, the Deputy Attorney General temporarily serves in his place? Who would have ever even imagined such an inconceivable scenario? How could the White House Chief of Staff and WH Counsel possibly be expected to think of such a far-fetched idea?

Please. There’s fibbing, there’s lying, and there’s this explanation.

Indeed, this explanation is so transparently stupid, I’m genuinely surprised administration officials would repeat it, out loud, to a reporter at a major news outlet. To hear them tell it, Card and Gonzales needed to try and take advantage of an ailing man in intensive care because no one else had any authority at the Justice Department. Ask a 12-year-old kid who’s in charge of the Justice Department if the #1 guy is sick and can’t serve. Chances are, she’ll say, “The #2 guy.” Somehow, this eluded two of the president’s top aides? I don’t think so.

In other words, this is the explanation: it’s not that Card and Gonzales were trying to circumvent the rule of law, it’s that they have no idea how the executive branch of government works. That’s not my accusation; that’s their defense.

Digby summarized this nicely:

This was a typical Bush/Cheney/Rove style power play. They tried a completely unethical end-run that didn’t work and then they attempted to make the Justice Department swallow a lie that was so lame that it could only have been a loyalty test. How infuriating.

Eugene Robinson’s take is also worth reading:

The image I can’t get out of my head is of Alberto Gonzales carrying a document for Ashcroft’s signature into the man’s hospital room, attempting a sneaky end-run around the deputy whom Ashcroft left in charge of the department, knowing full well that Ashcroft was seriously ill and almost certainly medicated. What did he intend to do, guide the man’s hand?

This is the attorney general of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. Heaven help us.

And this was written before the Newsweek piece with Gonzales’ explanation.

“This is the attorney general of the United States, ladies and gentlemen.”

Sort of.

More true:
He is a “Made Guy.
Remember: first and last he is a member of the Bush Crime Family.

And no I am not being flip here.

The ONLY WAY to understand this administration is via the lingo of the Mafia.

  • It all sounds like business as usual in the Bush world. The end run power play. The lying. The stupidity. And the loyalty tests. And we still don’t know exactly what they were trying to pull off.

    We are in such deep trouble I have little confidence this democratic republic is going to survive much longer if there is no accountability worthy of the name imposed on this regime. I’m not holding my breath.

  • Did you see the LA Times Op-ed today defending Ashcroft? I had to laugh.

    Don’t forget the great ‘civil libertarian’ Ashcroft had apparently approved the wiretapping a number of times before. It wasn’t until people like Comey demanded that they look into it did Ashcroft realize that Yoo’s logic was absurd.

    I suppose Ashcroft deserves some credit that when he is forced to look at information that is absurd that Ashcroft had the guts to do the right thing.

    It appears when Gonzales looks at information that disagrees with the President ‘he might have been aware of it’ but then he goes on his merry way and forgets anything that might prevent the President from doing what he wants.

    Thank God that Gonzales was never put on the Supreme Court.

  • Well, it could be a plausible explanation. We should give it more consideration.

    Bush wash out of the loop. It wouldn’t be the first time.

    Maybe the Whitehouse HR department did not tell him that Ashcroft was on FMLA. Or maybe Cheney did not tell him that Comey was acting AG. Whatever the case, Bush did not know, he simply didn’t get the memo.

    I mean the guvermint is big. And he just works for it. He can’t know everything can he?

    Being President is hard after all, but he still manages to do a Heck of a Job most of the time.

  • Does anyone know if they’re trying to get Ashcroft to testify? That should be interesting.

  • Slimeballs. Simply slimeballs. My government fills me with disgust and revulsion.

    The administration looks more like a half-assed incompetent version of the Sopranos every day and the Democrats are too busy strategizing and maneuvering for advantage to actually standup on their hind legs and do something about it. George Bush is absolutely right: all we’re getting is political theatre. What was that kabuki reference?

    the answers are very simple: cut off the war funding and start impeachment proceedings on Gonzales. Those are the constitutionally provided remedies and not to take them is dereliction of duty.

    All this crap about needing six months to disengage in Iraq is BS. We can be out by Sunday. The violence isn’t going to get worse when we leave any more than it got worse when we left Viet Nam. We are the problem, not the solution.

  • So to summarize the White House explanation, it basically boils down to, “No, really! We really are that pig-stupid and hopelessly incompetent.” The bitch of it is, coming from this administration it’s almost not all that far-fetched when you put it that way.

  • To quote from some Latin, “Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat “, or “Ignorance of the law does not excuse.” I don’t think these clowns can claim cluelessness as a defense if their actions are considered lawbreaking.

    (P.S. I learned that quote from an old Peanuts cartoon – thanks, Charles Schulz!)

  • “Just the dishonesty?” – if only that was all it was, and if only it was the relatively inconsequential kind, like “no, those pants don’t make your butt look big,” or “I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.” And if only it was just an occasional thing, or confined to one area, instead of being like a cancer that has metastasized throughout the government.

    But it’s gotten to the point where I no longer believe any of these people are capable of telling the truth. And when it gets to the point where that basic and necessary credibility is gone, it’s time to put an end to it, and remove the people involved through whatever mechanisms are in place for that.

    We are hamstrung by the lack of the necessary votes for Articles of Impeachment – without those votes, there is no impeachment to send to the Senate for trial.

    It is the same problem we face in trying to change the policy in Iraq – without a veto-proof vote on funding, Bush still has the upper hand. Our only option is just to stop drafting bills, tell the president he has two of them to choose from, and stand fast.

  • There are also the two critical questions that still haven’t been answered:
    – What exactly did the administration want that turned even John Ashcroft into a lily-livered ACLU-card-carrying terrorist lover?
    – Why exactly was the administration so desperate to ignore even the incredibly weak safeguards (after-the-fact secret judicial rubberstamping) offered by FISA?
    Digby wonders if the dirty secret was that they were spying on domestic enemies. What a nutty, wingbat conspiracy theory! Totally insane! Tinfoil hat country! And, judging by past experience, probably close to the truth.

  • re: Ashcroft testifying.
    That would be nice but I really think the man was so sick he doesn’t remember. If they had gotten him to sign something (I’m not sure Mrs. Ashcroft would have just stood there, but supposing) Ashcroft would have shat diamonds when he got better and the fall out from that would have been quite amusing. At any rate, I think if we need to pick a hero out of this particular act in the WH’s Farce-A-Thon it, it is Mueller.

    However, the WH’s crap explanation raises an interesting question: If Goner winds up flat on his back in the hospital can anyone wander in to the room, get him to sign something (like a letter of resignation or a warrant for the pResident’s arrest) and later say “Goodness, I didn’t know who else to ask”?

    Also, I thought the original explanation was they were just stopping by to wish Ashcroft a speedy recovery.

  • The purpose for trip to the hospital room was criminal. That’s why Comey said he had spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that he knew he would be called to testify.

    The president’s people know this was criminal as well. That’s why they have to pretend that they were ignorent of a material fact. That’s their only hope for an out, but I don’t think it will work.

    Gonzoles was not the AG at the time of these events. He was the president’s attorney and he was acting on behalf of the president in going to the hospital room. The office of legal council had actual and/or constructive knowledge of the power transfer, since there was a public announcment and the fax. Hiding in a bubble, getting filtered information, and making up your own facts to fit your own reality may be an explanation, but it’s not a legal defense.

    There are too many witnesses on this one. The AG Ashcroft, his wife, Philbin, Goldsmith and Comey in the hospital room; and the hospital switchboard on the incoming call. Helps to shine a light on why these people try to do so much in secret. I imagine that there are many more actions they have taken that are just as criminal as this one, but there were no willing witnesses. Willing witnesses are the difference with this incident.

  • Slimey,slimey,slimey ick. It’s like having something nasty on your shoes that sticks to everything, making it impossible to get rid of.

  • The temptation to use Mafia metaphors is strong…so much the Bush family does seems to follow patterns familiar in that world. But history provides an even better guide, harkening back to times when ‘states’ were essentially protection rackets. In the days of Louis XIII and his brilliant adviser, Cardinal Richelieu, the men (on all sides) who did the dirty work earned a special title: “créature” (which, if we think about it, is simply French for ‘made man’!)

    A créature owed loyalty without question to the grandee or powerful minister who ‘made’ him, and could be relied upon to do deeds the master wanted, while steadfastly denying that he was following such orders. The court of the late Bourbons appears to match the current White House to a t!

    • Comments are closed.