Agape \Ag"a*pe\, n.; pl. Agap[ae]. [Gr. 'aga`ph love, pl.
'aga`pai.]
The love feast of the primitive Christians, being a meal
partaken of in connection with the communion.
[1913 Webster
I admit I'm surprised, Shi'a.
Mr. Comey's account offered a rare and titillating glimpse of a Washington power struggle, complete with a late-night showdown in the White House after a dramatic encounter in a darkened hospital room -- in short, elements of a potboiler paperback novel.
I hate David Stout.
Bush has succeeded in making Ashcroft and Negroponte into good guys. Everything is relative.
2: Ha. I was incensed about that sentence myself, and was about to comment on it.
I'm ashamed of myself -- I've gotten burned out on paying attention to this stuff. If people didn't care about the last thousand awful things, why would this be interesting.
But it is pretty lurid, isn't it.
Did I read the article correctly? Ashcroft was one of the good guys in this story?
I hope Falwell remembered to bring his ice skates.
3: Yeah, I actually gained a little respect for Ashcroft reading that. At least he has a principle or two!
3. I seem to remember that certain folks had Ashcroft as the embodiment of evil. BDS has some weird side effects.
Most seasons of Buffy had this same structure. The season begins with someone you think is the big villain, but he turns out merely to be the tool of an even bigger villain. You thought Ashcroft was scary, ha ha, meet Alberto Gonzales!
"The surveillance program was reauthorized on March 11, 2004, without a signature from the Department of Justice "attesting to its legality," Mr. Comey testified."
Um, even in the perverted world of this administration, doesn't this mean that it violated the law?
Ha, meanwhile, I had wanted to talk about how I hoped that someone really talented will write an awesome and gripping book about all this (not this story in particular, just the whole lurid shebang) ten years from now -- but who should do it? As I was saying, Tom Wolfe could have done it before he got old and Republican, but that was a long time ago, now.
"Good guys" might be taking it a bit too far. Ashcroft wanted to impose totalitarian rule through purely constitutional means.
And 3, yes, seriously. Very disconcerting.
Well, yeah. One thing to remember about the firing all the US Attorneys for not trumping up phony voter fraud indictments to influence the elections, is that the good guys, who got fired for refusing to be corrupt, were Republican party apparatchiks as well. There are gradations of awfulness out there.
Where's Opinionated Grandma when you need her?
It was perfectly possible to think that Ashcroft was a horrible politician and a disgrace to the office while simultaneously believing that you could do worse. Sheesh.
I remember my Bush-hating friend, when I told him Ashcroft resigned, got very worried, because he knew that whoever replaced him would be worse. Not just a lucky guess, I suspect.
11 - This looks like a job for Zombie S. Thompson.
You thought Ashcroft was scary, ha ha, meet Alberto Gonzales!
Gonzales is just another tool; I'm not sure there is a bad guy, rather than just a big group of pretty bad people. And Ashcroft is no hero--we're not that far down the road to Hell.
Lederman has the transcript, or large portions of it, which are worth reading through.
Contrast Schumer's "gulp" with -gg-d's "agape."
Wolfe was always a Republican, whether he knew it or not.
14. LB admits not all Republicans are evil. I hope Falwell has access to http://www.outinstyle.com/Merchant2/agent.mvc?AG=pricegrabber&SC=PROD&C=CH-UNDERWEAR&P=RCO-6453
18 and other things are also why (hey, why not recapitulate my whole comment from the depths of no-one-is-reading-this-thread-now?) I was moved to fantasize that a LeCarre type will turn up to write fantastic and depressing novels set in this administration. Wouldn't that be great? Also, how fucking craven am I? Yes, yes, sure, all kinds of evil shit is going down and people are dying and being tortured and their rights are being destroyed, but maybe I will get something good to read out of it!
20: I suspect at least part of him knows it.
As I was saying, Tom Wolfe could have done it before he got old and Republican, but that was a long time ago, now.
Tom Wolfe is basically an apologist for these people and has been for a long, long time. Go reread his piece on Junior Johnson, which is forty years old. Don't expect anything worthwhile from him.
Wolfe was Republican by about 1972.
Call it the "Enabling Act of 2004" (shades of von Hindenburg).
Here's the thing. Ashcroft was his own man with his own political base -- he'd been a U.S. Senator, and before that, attorney general and governor of Missouri. Gonzales was always the creature of President Bush and Karl Rove, and it should be unsurprising that Ashcroft would stand up while Gonzales laid down. Metaphorically speaking, of course, since it was Ashcroft lying in the hospital bed and Gonzales standing alongside the bed.
Bah. Neither of them should ever have been AG.
his security detail then sped him to the hospital with sirens blaring and emergency lights flashing
Awesome. With any luck someone'll use this to charge him with violating some law or other against improper use of emergency sirens.
All Republicans are evil. LB will be dealt with.
29: All due respect, but it sounded like a pretty proper use to me.
Are all Republicans evil? No, some of them are merely mendacious opportunists.
We already knew that the Administration's two favorite words were "fuck" and "you", but it's still astonishing that AGAG still has a job.
If it's like Buffy, can we dust some White House aides?
five by five...
By the way, ogged, you got it wrong. Crisco does not win.
"some of them are merely mendacious opportunists."
A very common form of evil. Anyone watching The Sopranos these days?
Wow. "I won't speak to you unless the SG is there." This is crazy.
31: The real problem is that there were and are Decent Republicans, and people know or remember them. So people find it impossible to believe the absolute worst about the present Republican Party, when that's what's appropriate. (For some reason, I find it telling that the early "public people" I remember as calling out this Administration and this Party were old line Republicans (or former old line Republicans).)
Duct tape and Crisco, my date with Fontana Labs.
How exhilarating it all must have been for Comey, don't you think? The director of the FBI shares your urgency! Race to the hospital! Pull the Solicitor General out of a dinner party to be your witness at the White House!
I want to know what string of expletives Mueller used.
41: I imagined "fuck these motherfuckers."
I imagined "fuck these motherfuckers."
But the article says he addressed it to Gonzales.
"Mr. Mueller, who had not yet arrived, told Mr. Comey's security detail by phone "not to allow me to be removed from the room under any circumstances," Mr. Comey testified."
This is curious. Who would attempt to remove the Acting Attorney General from the hospital room of the incapacitated Attorney General when he'd been invited by the AG's wife? More to the point, why did the FBI Director feel that he had to order this? Given that the detail was presumably made up of FBI agents, the only other law enforcement folks I can imagine being involved were Secret Service agents. Can the White House CoS and Counsel give those kinds of orders to their Secret Service details?
Someone needs to ask Robert Mueller what he was afraid would happen in that hospital room.
38: Well, the confusing thing is that the policies the Decent Republicans advocate are also wrong, both practically and morally, they're just misguided rather than personally corrupt. So from the point of view of who you want in power, the one is almost as bad as the other. In point of view of what you think of them as people, there's a wide range of awful, from "I don't understand why such a decent person has such peculiar and ill-advised policy views" to "Get that man off my TV before I vomit."
40: I'd guess the thought process would be more like "holy shit" followed by "this sucks" followed by "OK, we have to make a stand on this" followed by several more iterations of "holy shit" and "this sucks". Some people get off on that sort of thing, by I don't think the form of the getting off has much to do with exhilaration.
I imagine he was anticipating Aschcroft weakly acquiesing to Card and Gonzales, who would ask that Comey be removed if Comey presented a problem.
44: That's the most astonishing bit of the whole astonishing thing.
43: Oh, I thought it was with Ashcroft. I suppose "with the attorney general" is ambiguous, under the circumstances.
Nice recovery, LB. Your little reptiles are safe -- for now.
Another article for the impeachment resolution.
"I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure," Mr. Comey said.
I'll bet you don't.
"I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure," Mr. Comey said.
I'll bet you don't.
Oh, you're right, foxytail, it is ambiguous.
They're amphibians, thank you very much. Which makes the whole family structure somewhat confusing, but given that Buck's a mammal, the metaphor lacked coherence from the get go.
I think the exhilaration qua exhilaration comes after the fact, but I still think that's one of the emotions likely to be in there. Adrenaline! Importance! Making a stand! Cinematic!
44, 48: Yeah, it's so banana republicy. Important policy decisions resting on whose force of armed men can guarantee or block access to the sick decisionmaker. Freaky.
Some people get off on that sort of thing, by I don't think the form of the getting off has much to do with exhilaration.
I imagine you don't rise to this level of power unless you are exactly the kind of person who gets off on this sort of thing.
55: You two are like Kermit and Miss Piggy!
Comey gunned the engine on his Harley and spat. "I'll fuck the fuck out of those fucks", he said, and exploded down the street toward the hospital.
Which makes the whole family structure somewhat confusing, but given that Buck's a mammal
I blame Massachusetts.
58: I'm not sure that's true. There are certainly lots of people in positions of power who are there in part because they really enjoy power games, but I think there are others who are competent at such things but don't enjoy them a whole lot.
it's so banana republicy
Kinda like the first Bush election.
Further to my 57: I mean, am I imagining it, or was there an implication that the possibility of a FBI-Secret Service altercation was considered?
Card and Gonzales slouched naked in the West Wing steam room. "We should get on that Ashcroft thing", Card said. Card leaned over and flicked Gonzales's erection. Gonzales flicked him back. "You asshole", Gonzales said.
These excerpts of my highly anticipated novel are not necessarily in chronological order.
The use of "exploded" in 60 is masterful.
It's all very Cold War era spy novel, where the hero has his escape facilitated by the GRU as part of their ongoing conflict with the KGB.
Uh oh, he's going to die from multiple complimentitis.
Bridgeplate, write the full novel now! The public demands it!
64: Sounds like it. The Card and Gonzo get Comey out of the room, have Ashcroft scribble on whatever the papers were, and it's done. Whatever it was, it's signed by the A.G. and witnessed by two high-ranking admin aides.
he's going to die from multiple complimentitis.
I'm Standpipe the White, baby. Your compliments can't hurt me.
The birds in my yard are doing courtship shit constantly. The doves actually have a kissing game. I want to cry out to them: "No, no! You'll end up with 6 annoying mouths to feed! You'll become a worm-delivery bot! Think it over!"
I bet that's what St. Francis was trying to tell them. No one ever says that the birds listened to him.
The only part that genuinely surprises me is:
(1) it's such good copy.
(2) us finding out before they left office.
I did remember the older, less detailed story about the visit to Ashcroft's hospital room, too.
Acute pancreatitis is serious. My uncle almost died of it (though I think Ashcroft's was less severe, based on his recovery time.) Tony Snow is a real jerk comparing it to "appendicitis."
Hopefully this will expand the focus of the hearings from the U.S. Attorney firings to the wholesale corruption of DOJ. That would be better than Ashcroft resigning.
I much prefer people who have some integrity, and some ability to distinguish between the law and their own power, to those who don't. But I wouldn't make saints of Goldsmith, Ashcroft, Comey or any of these guys until we know a bit more. They're clearly preferable to Gonzales, Addington, & Yoo--vastly preferable in Comey's and Goldsmith's cases--but that doesn't make them heroes, and we actually know very little of the story.
better than Gonzales resigning, that is to say.
I want Gonzales to stay for at least another six months. Wolfowitz, too. There is all sorts of fun stuff that can come out.
Did you see that Wolfowitz said about his critics? "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too."
(redfox, ogged, rob—thanks.)
What the hell good would Ashcroft's signature be? There's Comey's story, Mrs. Ashcroft, etc. all saying that he's incapacitated, the acting AG is opposed to signing off on the thing...and Comey's willingness to resign suggests that the story is coming out eventually. The signature has no legal significance and this is known by Card and Gonzales, right?
The signature has no legal significance
Labs, Labs, you sweet naif.
They just go on TV, say Comey is a traitor and Ashcroft is just fine and here's his signature and what kind of nut would think that they'd get the signature of an incapacitated man?
OT: Bush found his war czar. It's going to be interesting to see what the experts have to say. From my totally non-expert perspective, appointing an active-duty three-star officer to work directly for the President and give orders to the Pentagon and State Department seems to create a pretty bizarre chain of command, but maybe at that level it's all so weird anyway that they don't worry too much about such things.
81: They say Ashcroft took back his mojo and here's his signature to prove it. Once it's done neither Comey nor Mrs. A. are going to say anything.
B, Ogged, you've been watching too much 24. Which is worse: today's revelation, or Ashcroft, outraged at being manipulated, resigning, along with Comey-- which sounds very likely had Card and AG succeeded-- and telling the story of how Card and AG got a signature they knew had no legal importance (w/ Comey being AAG) in order to make things look, at a very superficial and unconvincing level, as though they were legal?
I don't think Ashcroft would have said anything. There's some bizarre code of silence for the highest level Washington players. And nobody knows from Comey; it doesn't matter what he says.
I don't watch 24 at all, my friend. Come on. They didn't expect Comey to be there; they get the signature, file it away, and keep the whole thing secret. If it ever comes out, well lookee here, Ashcroft signed the thing. Whether or not he remembers signing it is immaterial; hell, not remembering just makes him look like the liar.
Ashcroft would die or be incapacitated, of course, and the distraught Mrs. Ashcroft would need medication and constant attention, like Martha Mitchell back in the Nixon days.
And I, too, rather suspect that Ashcroft--and possibly Comey--might well have kept their mouths shut, resignations or no.
86: But we know that Gonzales, at least, doesn't suffer from a huge excess of bright. Just because trying to get something that looked vaguely like Ashcroft's signature on a piece of paper would have been a bad plan doesn't mean that it would have been unreasonable for Comey et al. to fear that that's what Gonzales had in mind.
Why is it a given that we can't know what the program at issue was? Isn't that kind of important?
2 has it exactly right: the Times article is absolutely terrible. It doesn't even provide the damning context for this 'titillating' scene until 8 grafs in, and is incredibly vague even there.
Anyone interested in this needs to read the Balkinization posts dealing with this, especially this, already linked by 19.
Man, I hate journalists.
91: totally right.
I'm not up on the details of who knew about the need for reauthorization, but it doesn't take any insight at all to think, hey, Ashcroft was in the hospital for two weeks, and Comey was AAG...wtf?
Maybe Ashcroft would have kept his mouth shut, but the successful attempt might well have outraged him a good deal more than the failed attempt.
The WaPo headline says wiretapping. I haven't read the article well because my kid is pissing me off.
The Times article also says it was about the domestic surveillance program.
Yeah, I've read it's the NSA surveillance program. But how will Congress get direct testimony on that? And why should the paramaters of the surveillance program be kept under wraps? What's the legal justification?
93: "Burying the lede" is often or usualy done by the anonymous editors who really run the paper. Many bylined reporters are peons, and many of them do self-censor to save the editors labor.
I think that in an internal coup, Ashcroft's signature would have had weight even in the absence of legal significance. This is very internal.
99: It's not just a question of 'burying the lede'; the entire article is written so as to be impenetrable to anyone who hasn't already been following this more closely than 99% of the public. Everyone else will simply think 'ooh, titillating.'
The important thing is this series of events, as Lederman sets out in the Balkinization post:
Comey testified as follows:(i) that he, OLC and the AG concluded that the NSA program was not legally defensible, i.e., that it violated FISA and that the Article II argument OLC had previously approved was not an adequate justification (a conclusion prompted by the New AAG, Jack Goldsmith, having undertaken a systematic review of OLC's previous legal opinions regarding the Commander in Chief's powers);
(ii) that the White House nevertheless continued with the program anyway, despite DOJ's judgment that it was unlawful;
(iii) that Comey, Ashcroft, the head of the FBI (Robert Mueller) and several other DOJ officials therefore threatened to resign;
(iv) that the White House accordingly -- one day later -- asked DOJ to figure out a way the program could be changed to bring it into compliance with the law (presumably on the AUMF authorizaton theory); and
(v) that OLC thereafter did develop proposed amendments to the program over the subsequent two or three weeks, which were eventually implemented.
The program continued in the interim, even after DOJ concluded that it was unlawful.
It's really, really hard to reconstruct that series of events purely from the article.
I thought Gore Vidal was the drunken wine shill.
109: you've been sitting on that photo, waiting for the appropriate time to spring it, haven't you?
Love the hair, though. Business in the front...
111. I'm sure she loves his sparkling wit. Or something.
An interesting feature of this thing: Comey's resignation is held up by the Madrid bombing. Just another of the many ways that AQ has saved the President's bacon.
21
"LB admits not all Republicans are evil."
Actually LB just stated that all Republicans are not equally evil which does not seem like much of an admission.
There are Republicans and there are Republicans. One phenomenon that I think often goes unremarked is that pretty much all of the serious blows landed on this president came from Republicans, or folks with close ties to Republicans.
Iullo (sp?), Kuo, the Alcoa guy who ran Treasury, all the generals with the pro Republican biases and genuine professional standards, the fired U.S. Attys, Scowcroft, Wilson (!), Wilkerson, etc.
Is Richard Clark a Democrat? If he is, he's not a very partisan one.
The common thread is that these are all Good Americans. (I see a distinction here between these folks and Powell and Tenet, who are just careerist whores.)
George W. Bush is, at heart, anti-American, and he's won a lot of Republicans over to the dark side. But not all Republicans hate America. Maybe a majority don't.
Apparently Stout is the Times' stopgap ninja; his piece has been bumped from the front page in favor of this one, blessedly free of boiled pots and other hackanalia.
I can't believe I'm the only one to have thought of this:
Comey: Where are all the US Marshals?
Nurse:Your boss had too many visitors:they were interfering with patient care. The White House made them go away.
Comey (on phone to Justice):Hey, there's nobody here. No Marshals, no attorneys general, nobody
.
Philbin:Stay calm, we'll send some of our people.
[Outside Ashcroft's room, a man approaches in a sinister manner]
Comey:Who are you?
Mueller:Ima Mueller, the director of the effaBI. You don rememer me?
Comey:Come on Mueller, come on outside. Now stick your hand in your pocket like you got a copy of the fourth amendment.
[A black car pulls up carrying Gonzales and Card, slows down briefly, then drives away]
Comey: You did good, Mueller, you did real good.
Well done, foolishmortal. Well done.
119: the godfather (original), i think
117: I was thinking of Card, in black coat, black rollneck and black hat, holding a pillow over Ashcroft's face, until Cornyn bursts in and shoots him...
The whole damn scene is lifted from one of Carl Hiaasen's early books - can't remember which one, Skin Tight?. Time to give up on reality, come back Bob MacManus.
This truly raises the bar on crazy, no? We've been used to the incremental, boiling frog increases in crazy. This one punches right through the crust. I wonder what the Stiftung Leo Strauss will have to say about it?
I really can't imagine this happening in Britain, although there is a tradition of dragging pre-dead MPs through the division lobby on crucial votes.
Well, I'll admit it. I liked the article, because I like a good story.
I do hope, though, that some attention gets focused on points i, ii, iii in 99.
125: So did I. I'm a sucker for narrative. I really don't think it's all that hard to put together the important legal/political points, either, and I know I'm not smarter or better informed than 99% of the public.
123: Last night, talking to Rah, I described it by saying, "It's like it's right out of the administration of President Dan Brown."
115: I was listening to NPR this morning and they were playing quotes from last night's debate. Any mention of 9/11 got wild applause, apparently. Romney said explicitly that he would double the size of Gitmo and that he liked having terrorists in Gitmo "where they don't have access to lawyers like they would on our soil." I realize that the audience for these things is the wingeriest of the winger base; I'm a pretty partisan Democrat but I find the idea of watching the Dem debates this early produces a sort of smothering sensation and I can't reasonably believe that people in roughly the same spot on the spectrum of Republican partisanship don't feel the same way; clearly they expect viewers to be the base of the base of the base, the truly hardcore and that was the sentiment on display. I don't know what that says about the majority of Republicans, I just think it's worth noting.
Also, from NPR's report it sounds like the sniping got started early. Please, gods, let this be a classic ugly Republican primary. Let the knives be bloodied early and often.
I didn't read the first article completely. What is new in today's piece? The alleged involvement of the president? I am glad to see it on the front page.
Foolishmortal, Marty Lederman did think of it -- but your screenplay excerpt is excellent.
The new NYT story pissed me off -- "President Intervened in Dispute over Wiretapping"? THAT'S what someone got from Comey's testimony?
How about "Bush Chief of Staff, Gonzales Foiled in Imitation of 3d-Rate Goombahs"?
Glenn Greenwald's piece today on Comey's testimony hits all the right notes, especially highlighting the fact that the wiretapping was deemed illegal by DoJ for 2-3 weeks and continued nonetheless. And Glenn's also astonished by the FBI Director's insistence to Comey's protection detail that he not be removed from Ashcroft's hospital room.
Oh, and 117 wins the thread.
Video! (I can't tell if I've already been pwned on this, but ... no matter.)
Does anyone not think that we are all probably being monitored pursuant to this NSA program? Which regular is from the NSA, I wonder.
Okay, that video is unbelievable. I'm only halfway through, but holy shit. I didn't watch the network news last night, so if this was the case, forgive me, but why the FUCK wasn't this video front and center on the nightly news?!?
Classic bit from the very beginning: "I've actually thought quite a bit over the last three years about how I would answer that queston if it was ever asked, because I assumed that at some point I would have to testify about it."
43, 49, 54: The video makes it pretty clear that Comey is talking about Mueller's exchange with Ashcroft about what had just happened.
Comey: "He [Mueller] had a brief... [pauses, nods head] memorable, brief exchange with the Attorney General."
133 is right -- also, doesn't Comey also say that the "memorable" exchange happened after Gonzalez and Card had left the room? So unless it was memorable because Mueller was screaming at someone in the hallway, the "Attorney General" would have to be Ashcroft.
The entire testimony is riveting.
