Alberto Gonzales, George Bush, John Ashcroft And The “Wednesday Night Ambush”
May 18th, 2007
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
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Anyone who lived through the administration of Richard Nixon and the Watergate crisis fully remembers The Saturday Night Massacre (I was in New Delhi, India, interning on The Hindustan Times and was so upset about it that I went into the office of editor George Verghese and told him I feared what would happen in my country. He coolly and correctly told me: “Let’s just see how this all sorts itself out.” He calmed me, but I proceeded to send several cables to my elected representatives expressing anger and demanding action).
And now, in the administration of George Bush, we have the case of not-yet-Attorney General and close Bush associate Alberto Gonzales’ urgently rushing to visit a hospitalized and ailing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to pressure him to sign domestic spying orders that some in the Justice Department (including, it turns, out Ashcroft) refused to approve. See this VIDEO HERE for full details.
Now there’s a new political development that spells trouble for Bush — not in the sense of impeachment but in terms of a steady virtual collapse of his administration’s credibility: the press is starting to ask Bush what he knew about that visit and when he knew it.
Josh Marshall has this video of Bush refusing to answer whether he ordered Gonzales and another close aide to visit Ashcroft. He writes: “The funny thing about this dodge is that the president is saying not only that the nature of the program is highly classified and must be kept secret, which may be true, but that his apparent order for Gonzales and Card to go squeeze the semi-conscious John Ashcroft is also highly classified and must be kept secret. Somehow I just don’t get that one. The president’s refusal to answer tells the tale. The president gave the order and even placed the call, as James Comey all but told us yesterday.”
Even worse, it’s now clear that the Washington Post thinks it smells a PRESIDENTIAL cover up. It wrote an editorial which seems to have the same feel as the ones written during Watergate. See All Spin Zone for full details and commentary.
The question we’ve posed to Democrats, Republicans and independents has been: Have we ever seen an administration like this? The answer seems to increasingly be…perhaps.
The question for Republicans of good conscience is: does this administration, by the way it operates, the way it treats other branches of the government, its attitude towards existing law and the kind of respect it shows for it, REALLY honor the values nurtured, cherished and safeguarded by such Republican Presidents as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan…and even the first George Bush?
This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 7:06 am and is filed under U.S. Attorneys, MSM, White House, Scandals, Civil Liberties, Alberto Gonzales, George W. Bush, Republicans, Media, Law & Legal Matters. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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