http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/135A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
We don’t know if Alberto Gonzales is married or not, because your family life comes second when you are married to the mob.
And if there were any doubters about BuzzFlash’s long-time contention that Gonzales is the consigliere to the Bush organized crime family, it is now gone from anyone who has read about the hit man visit of Gonzales and former Bush Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, to a hospitalized, medicated, severely ill John Ashcroft. You see, the two enforcers for Bush and Cheney were trying to force a gravely weakened Ashcroft into approving the infamous illegal domestic wiretapping powers that "Fredo" Bush and Godfather Cheney so greedily sought.
The mob effort of Gonzales and Card was so transparently illegal, it even forced the normally Bush-supportive editorial board of the Washington Post (that at times has written editorials that have rivaled the Wall Street Journal for fiction writing to back Bush and Cheney) to declare:
"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.
Let’s be clear: This was John "God is the King of America" Ashcroft who found, as Attorney General, that the infamous domestic wire tapping did not pass the muster of the Constitution or standing law. If Ashcroft, who loved executions and torture, was opposed to the Bushevik bypassing of FISA, this must have been real bad stuff, Corleone-style spying on the opposition and anyone who got in the way of the Busheviks, not Osama bin Laden’s pals."
It must have gotten awfully crowded in Ashcroft’s hospital room. You see, Comey (according to his testimony) -- then the Acting Attorney General (Ashcroft was so ill that he appointed his second in command to replace him until he recovered) -- testified that he called the head of the FBI to come to the hospital and help prevent Gonzales and Card from essentially defrauding Ashcroft and the Constitution.
The episode is such an egregious violation of the rule of law and any standards of decency that we are quoting The New York Times account of Comey’s testimony to Congress in full:
"Mr. Comey, the former No. 2 official in the Justice Department, said the crisis began when he refused to sign a presidential order reauthorizing the program, which allowed monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail of people inside the United States who were suspected of having terrorist ties. He said he made his decision after the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, based on an extensive review, concluded that the program did not comply with the law. At the time, Mr. Comey was acting attorney general because Mr. Ashcroft had been hospitalized for emergency gall bladder surgery.
Mr. Comey would not describe the rationale for his refusal to approve the eavesdropping program, citing its classified nature. The N.S.A. program, which began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks and did not require court approval to listen in on the communications of Americans and others, provoked an outcry in Congress when it was disclosed in December 2005.
Mr. Comey said that on the evening of March 10, 2004, Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, tried to bypass him by secretly visiting Mr. Ashcroft. Mr. Ashcroft was extremely ill and disoriented, Mr. Comey said, and his wife had forbidden any visitors. Mr. Comey said that when a top aide to Mr. Ashcroft alerted him about the pending visit, he ordered his driver to rush him to George Washington University Hospital with emergency lights flashing and a siren blaring, to intercept the pair. They were seeking his signature because authority for the program was to expire the next day.
Mr. Comey said he phoned Mr. Mueller, who agreed to meet him at the hospital. Once there, Mr. Comey said he "literally ran up the stairs." At his request, Mr. Mueller ordered the F.B.I. agents on Mr. Ashcroft’s security detail not to evict Mr. Comey from the room if Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card objected to his presence.
Mr. Comey said he arrived first in the darkened room, in time to brief Mr. Ashcroft, who he said seemed barely conscious. Before Mr. Ashcroft became ill, Mr. Comey said the two men had talked and agreed that the program should not be renewed.
When the White House officials appeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why they were there. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong and unequivocal terms, refused to approve the eavesdropping program.
"I was angry," Mr. Comey told the committee. "I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.""
According to the Times, Ashcroft, Comey, the head of the FBI, and other senior Justice Department officials were prepared to resign if Bush rammed the illegal domestic wiretapping order down their throats.
Bush was so enraged at the rebellion in his mob outfit that he apparently reamed out Comey shortly after the unprecedented stand-off between the head of the FBI, the Acting Attorney General, the bed-ridden Attorney General and two enforcers from the White House in a hospital room.
The NYT reports that Comey testified:
"Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card quickly departed, but Mr. Comey said he soon got an angry phone call from Mr. Card, demanding that he come to the White House. Mr. Comey said he replied: "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.
"Mr. Comey said he reached Theodore B. Olson, the solicitor general, at a dinner party. At the White House session, which included Mr. Olson, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Comey and Mr. Card, the four officials discussed the impasse. Mr. Comey knew that other top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, wanted to continue the program. Mr. Card expressed concern about mass resignations at the Justice Department, Mr. Comey said. He told the Senate panel that he prepared a letter of resignation and that David Ayres, Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff, asked him to delay delivering it so that Mr. Ashcroft could join him. Mr. Comey said Mr. Mueller was also prepared to quit.
The next morning, March 11, Mr. Comey went to the White House for a terrorism briefing. Afterward, he said Mr. Bush took him aside for a private 15-minute meeting in the president’s study, which Mr. Comey described as a "full exchange." In case you don’t know, a "full exchange" is "Washington speak" for a roaring confrontation just short of coming to blows. "
So on top of all the illegalities involved in ProsecutorGate, TortureGate -- and so on -- Alberto, who has been Bush’s lawyer and legal ass-protector for more than a decade, is the loyalist consigliere who will do whatever Bush asks of him, including breaking the law many times over.
But while Alberto is married to the mob, remember that Fredo Bush and Godfather Cheney are running the organized crime unit that is the executive branch of our federal government, including the Department of Justice and many of the Republican appointed jurists on the Federal Court.
In short, while Gonzales should leave his position and be tried for felonies, it is Bush and Cheney who should be impeached for racketeering, high crimes and misdemeanors.
The courageous people who founded America as a revolutionary democracy feared and tried to prevent monarchist powers from ever being assumed by a president. They accomplished this through our Constitution and system of checks and balances.
But the mob didn’t exist in 1776.
Little did they know that we would end up with both a delusional man who would be king running the nation, with a Godfather whispering in his ear, and a Svengali (Rove) implementing a strategy to shred the Constitution.
It is a testament to the perennial caution of the Democrats that any of the Busheviks are still in power.
Yes, Pelosi and Reid are speaking more directly about the war lately, and making some loud but ineffective gestures at stopping the carnage.
But it’s time for a reality check here.
You cannot cover your eyes and pretend that the Presidency is not a den of thieves and all politically mobbed up and corrupt.
It is the Constitutional responsibility of the Democrats to hold Bush, Cheney and the rest of the mob outfit accountable.
When John "Soaring Eagle" Ashcroft takes a firmer hand -- while incapacitated in his hospital bed -- with the Bush Administration than the Democrats in Congress, you know that Reid and Pelosi are still a long way from passing a Constitutional gut check.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
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