It's something millions of people have asked themselves over the six year reign of terror under the Bush Occupation - "How low will they go?" Well, ask no more to what depths of depravity the Bushies will stoop. All you have to do is watch former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee describing how then WH Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former WH Chief-of-Staff Andrew Card went to former AG John Ashcroft's ICU bedside in attempt to coerce him into rubber-stamping the CrippledChimp's illegal NSA and FBI spying programs...

Not that jack-booter Ashcroft deserves any sympathy, but preying upon a patient in intensive care to ram-rod through approval of an obviously illegal policy? That's LOW! Comey's testimony has been described as being out of a Hollywood movie or a John Grisham novel. As the Washington Post opined -

JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source...

From this testimony by Comey comes the revelation that Gonzales likely perjured himself before the Senate in 2006, when he denied any internal controversy about the CrippledChimp's illegal spying at DoJ...

No Dissent on Spying, Says Justice Dept.
The Justice Department said yesterday that it will not retract a sworn statement in 2006 by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that the Terrorist Surveillance Program had aroused no controversy inside the Bush administration, despite congressional testimony Tuesday that senior departmental officials nearly resigned in 2004 to protest such a program.

The department's affirmation of Gonzales's remarks raised fresh questions about the nature of the classified dispute, which former U.S. officials say led then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and as many as eight colleagues to discuss resigning...

Word comes today that the Senate Dems Seek No-Confidence Vote on Gonzales. No confidence? What about IMPEACHMENT? Then indictment and imprisonment... It's waaaay past time for a special prosecutor to delve into the various scandals arising from the illegal spying programs and US Attorney Scandal!

Speaking of illegal spying program(s), in the plural, it also appears there is more than just the illegal NSA Spying Scandal at hand. Makes one wonder just how bad could it have been? Speculation runs the gamut from a shadow FBI spying operation...

After a conversation with a knowledgeable lawyer, I think I have at least a plausible theory of what roughly might have been going on. The NSA program targeted calls from terrorism suspects (however loosely defined) say from abroad to the States, and vice versa, without obtaining warrants, including for the US persons targeted. According to this speculative theory, the presumed second, FBI part of the program - the part that Comey and Goldsmith et al found objectionable, conceivably - then, without warrants, tracked all of the other communications that recipient made and received. How might the program have been brought into compliance when Comey et al objected? If the gov't decided to use the first part - the calls received from a terrorism suspect - as probable cause to obtain a warrant for all of the recipient's domestic and other communications. The problem? Getting a warrant could presumably cause the FISA judge to question why and how the target was identified in the first place. Maybe they found a way to get around the problem of illegal search and seizure...

to out-right Watergatesque political spying on Democrats arising from Comey's dramatic testimony...

I have believed from the get-go that this surveillance was being used for political purposes. The FISA court is a rubber stamp court that will allow virtually anything that could remotely be construed as necessary for national security. After 9/11 they would have been even more lenient. And if they weren't, the administration could easily have gone to the Republican congress and requested changes to the law and they would have gotten it.

How over-the-top must this have been for staunch Republican John Ashcroft to have risen from his ICU bed to argue against it and the entire top echelon of the DOJ were preparing to resign?...

My suspicion has always been that there was some part of this program - or an entirely different program - that included spying on political opponents. Even spying on peace marchers and Greenpeace types wouldn't seem to me to be of such a substantial departure from the agreed upon post 9/11 framework that it would cause such a reaction from the top brass, nor would it be so important to the president that he would send Gonzales and Card into the ICU to get Ashcroft to sign off on it while he was high on drugs.

The worst media coverage I've witnessed on Ashcroft's Night Visitors has been from the NYT's David Johnston with his "President Intervened in Dispute Over Eavesdropping" piece. I'm mean really! Painting Smirk as saviour at this point hearkens an intervention for Mr. Johnston, who's reporting is normally top notch. Wonder who the hell came up with the angle of Smirk ridin' in on a stallion to settle the dispute?

President George W. Bush intervened in March 2004 to avert a crisis over the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program after Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI director, Robert Mueller 3rd, and other senior Justice Department aides all threatened to resign, a former deputy attorney general testified. Bush quelled the revolt over the program's legality by allowing it to continue without Justice Department approval...

Say wha? Intervened in a crisis his own actions triggered and then settled by continuing the illegal activity anyway? Johnston, you can do better than that. Especially considering this passage from Comey's testimony..

COMEY: Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.

SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?

COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself...

The full transcript is avail. here ...

Update: The CrippledChimp dodges the question as to whether he personally called Mrs. Ashcroft at the hospital to arrange Gonzales and card's "visit"...