Former deputy attorney general James Comey testified before the Senate on Tuesday about how he and FBI director Robert Mueller prevented Alberto Gonzales (then Bush's lawyer) and former White House chief of staff Andrew Card from ambushing then-AG John Ashcroft to get him to agree to Bush's original domestic wiretapping plan.

Card and Gonzales were on the way over to get his approval for the plan. What the plan was hasn't been revealed yet, but it's clear that it was scary. Comey and Mueller heard Bush's boys were coming, so they "rushed" over to warn Ashcroft, who was hospitalized at the time. That's right, he was sick and in the hospital. Comey and Mueller got there before Card and Gonzales, and when they arrived, Ashcroft refused to endorse the plan. As we now know, a later, more limited version of the plan was approved in collaboration with the Justice Department.

Judging from how scary the actual warrantless wiretapping program turned out to be, imagine if the original plan had gone through.

I couldn't help but notice the similarity here to the hospital scene in the The Godfather, where the ailing Vito Corleone's police guard has disappeared and Michael and Enzo stare down the hit squad sent by Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey. It's unnerving. I can almost imagine the film noir shadows, the darkened street, the trembling hand reaching for the jacket pocket…

When you'd stoop to taking advantage of a sick man to support your illegal activities, are you really any better than a common gangster? At least now the White House doesn't have to intimidate the attorney general to get what they want. They just have to ask.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 11:14 am and is filed under Entertainment and culture, News and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.