They said it couldn't be done, but here it is: Gonzo has outdone himself.
You will recall that Gonzo couldn't recall if he was particularly responsible for the firing of at least nine federal district attorneys? Now Gonzo is more or less saying, oh, yeah, I remember now, the guy responsible for firing those DA's wasn't me, it was my deputy, Paul McNulty. I just signed the walking papers.
Warming to his theme, he added, I don't really remember specifically approving those particular firings, even though I might have. I disremember. I now understand that the papers were, in fact, signed and the federal attorneys were fired, maybe by me, but maybe by Sampson. No, wait a minute, it was McNulty. Yeah, McNulty; he's the guy. I'm just his boss.
Bear in mind that I'm not strictly going by the transcript here, but more or less winging it on what I believe the truthiness of the event was. Just like Gonzo, come to think of it. But wait! there's more.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey (now shit-canned), testified on the Hill yesterday that when Gonzales was the White House counsel to the Prez, Gonzo tried to strong arm a sick and drug-addled AG John Ashcroft while he was in hospital recovering from a serious gall bladder infection [circa March, 2004] into giving his (Ashcroft's) blessing on a seriously illegal domestic wiretapping program that the Prez had the NSA running. (To their credit, the NSA geeks were acutely nervous about the legality of the program.)
Comey, knowing the past history of Gonzo's weaselly consigliere relationship to the Shrub, ran like a raped ape to Ashcroft's bedside to prevent the kneecapping that Gonzo was surely going to administer to a (presumably) helpless Ashcroft. En route, Comey apparently called FBI Director Mueller, told him what was up, and Director Mueller ordered the on-duty Special Agents at Ashcroft's bedside to make sure that Comey was not barred from entering Ashcroft's room. In other words, that Gonzo and sub-goon Andy Card not be left alone with Ashcroft to do what thugs like G. do to uncooperative colleagues, usually with baseball bats.
[I know this stuff sounds like a bad plot line lifted from a Robert Ludlum spy novel. You ever read any of his books? His plots are as sick and twisted as a Kama Sutra sculpture and just as improbable, but there it is: sworn testimony in front of the fricking Congress.]
What Comey is telling us is that he was sure that Gonzo and the Card were going to smack Ashcroft around until he signed off on the NSA warrantless spying program that was exposed by the New York Times the previous week, the very program admitted to by the Shrub in front of God and everybody else. (Most of us non-MSM types out here beyond the Beltway already knew about the wiretapping, but it took the NYT to announce it "for the record").
This was pure madness, of course, as Gonzo surely knew that what Ashcroft had to say wasn't worth spit; Ashcroft had turned over the AG's office to Comey for the duration of his recovery. Constitutionally, Ashcroft had no standing in terms of proper legal advice while in that hospital bed, especially since he was as wired as a smack slut at the time and knew it. It's that whole "incompetency in office" thing. On the other hand, the Shrub wanted somebody that he respected to give him a pass on the wiretapping program, and Ashcroft was that authority figure. Even George knows that Gonzo is a toadying weasel and his legal advice isn't worth dog vomit.
Ashcroft, while he may be a Holy Roller awaiting the Rapture, is a moral man. To prove it, when Gonzo confronted him and requested his blessing on the dubious - strike that - illegal wiretapping program, Ashcroft said "No, and furthermore, fc*k no." Or words to that effect, according to Comey.
Bitterly disappointed but resolute and undeterred, the Shrub kept the program running anyway, and here we are.
So, Gentle Readers, that's this week's installment of "Washington Does Deadwood," complete with gratuitous profanity.
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