This article must hit the made popular list.

The hospital incident is the most telling anecdote and most representative of what absolute scum we are dealing with.

Nixon will look like Honest Abe compared to them before this is done.

Some here are speculating about the members of congress being spied on and blackmailed. I know Right Wingers will be inclined to call that unhinged speculation and conspiracy thinking, but I think the speculation is warranted and a reasonable inference.

After all, Cheney and the neo-cons went to the utmost to link the Democrats, and John Kerry to supporting Al Qaeda, and even claimed Al Qaeda wanted Kerry to win. Is it possible they weren't just cynically manipulating public opinion, that these paranoid weirdos running the country actually thought maybe Democrats were in cahoots with terrorists?

Some of these people are that paranoid. Some of the people at Free Republic aren't joking, and this is exactly the sort of people the Bush administration hires, deliberately for non-partisan positions. What was Porter Goss doing running CIA? Purging it of Democrats of course.

Also, of course there is just the run of the mill amoral desire to spy on your enemies and thus we must ask:

How do we know these spying powers were not used on Democrats and John Kerry? The point of warrants is that it creates a record that protects the entity doing the spying from accusations of improper use. Detached from that, all we have is the word of a bunch of serial liars.

Question for Bush supporters:

1) If Gonzales told you "the check is in the mail" would you believe him?

2) Has honour and dignity been restored to the White House yet?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10192754

The room was dark. Mrs. Ashcroft was standing by the bed. Comey said that Ashcroft, in his sixth day in intensive care, was not in good shape. He was unfocused, disoriented.

"And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey said. "They came over and stood by the bed, greeted the attorney general very briefly, and then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter."

Then, Ashcroft did something that stunned Comey. He lifted his head off the pillow and explained in strong, detailed terms why he would not sign the paper.

"And as he laid back down, he said, 'But that doesn't matter because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.' And he pointed to me," Comey testified. "I was just to his left. The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room."

That was not the end of it. Before Comey left the hospital, he received an urgent call from White House Chief of Staff Andy Card.

"Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately," Come said. "I responded that after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present. He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.'"

This is beyond "The West Wing" now. This is "The Godfather." And remember that Andy Card was a delivery boy, not a boss. Here's a scene from Paul O'Neill's book, "The Price of Loyalty".

"Go get me Andy Card," Bush said to one of the Secret Service agents. Card, the designee as chief of staff, entered from an adjoining room . . . Bush looked impatiently at Card, hard-eyed. "You're the chief of staff. You think you're up to getting us some cheeseburgers?"

Card nodded. No one laughed. He all but raced out of the room.

Neither Card nor Gonzales had the kind of imagination or independence to have gone to Ashcroft's hospital room on their own initiative. Who issued the orders?

Atrios reminds us that the "liberal" end of the acceptable opinion makers dismissed this NSA scandal and, typically, attacked the patriots who objected.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_05_13_archive.html#3825032364711870529

Can a President be indicted, after he's left office, for crimes committed during his tenure i.e., could W possibly go to jail if the Dems sweep in '08?

And why is You Know Who still allowed in here?

... Condi is out of the country, scoring many foreign relations coups and adding luster to a resume that, over the past couple of years, has become distressingly tarnished.

"How is this not a major scandal on the level of the greatest presidential corruption and lawbreaking scandals in our country's history?"

This is an agonizing question for me as well. I don't not have an answer, except somehow I believe part of the answer lies within the tortured comments posted by Jake007.

WHY did Comey, Ashcroft, et al "refuse to certify" "the program"?

This is really the heart of the matter:

Not only did Comey think that he had to rush to the hospital room to protect Ashcroft from having a conniving Card and Gonzales manipulate his severe illness and confusion by coercing his signature on a document -- behavior that is seen only in the worst cases of deceitful, conniving relatives coercing a sick and confused person to sign a new will -- but the administration's own FBI Director thought it was necessary to instruct his FBI agents not to allow Comey to be removed from the room.

Comey and Mueller were clearly both operating on the premise that Card and Gonzales were basically thugs. Indeed, Comey said that when Card ordred him to the White House, Comey refused to meet with Card without a witness being present, and that Card refused to allow Comey's summoned witness (Solicitor General Ted Olson) even to enter Card's office. These are the most trusted intimates of the White House -- the ones who are politically sympathetic to them and know them best -- and they prepared for, defended themselves against, the most extreme acts of corruption and thuggery from the President's Chief of Staff and his then-legal counsel (and current Attorney General of the United States).

Does this sound in any way like the behavior of a government operating under the rule of law, which believes that it had legal authority to spy on Americans without the warrants required for three decades by law?

No, it sounds like the Sopranos, cleaned up a bit, maybe.

Good grief! The Washington press corpse (sic) can look at this and see nothing amiss, but it's Jebediah Reed who has problems interpreting what's right before his eyes?

Puh-leaze!

What more could the Democrats possibly want to start impeachment hearings? John Ashcroft thought the President was breaking the law, for cryin' out loud!

Then Card and Gonzales were sent to get him to sign off on it while he was legally incompetent--as you say, like a couple of thugs. And the director of the FBI had to take steps to stop them.

Do you know how quickly Nixon would have been gone if this sort of bombshell came out about him? This isn't like the Saturday Night Massacre. It's like the Saturday Night Massacre and John Dean's testimony rolled into one.

And the Washington press corpse sees nothing amiss.

Back during Iran-Contra, my sister said that Reagan could strangle Nancy on national tv, and nothing would happen to him. It was hyperbole at the time. But if Bush were to strangle Laura, I'm not so sure it would be anymore. I can just hear Senate Specter calling for us to not lose our heads in partisan wrangling, and the DLC/Washington Post/Sunday talk shows warning us that Democrats are in grave peril of a backlash if they dwell on the matter, rather than cooperating with Bush on the matters Americans really care about.