Cheney Can't Recall If He Sent Gonzales and Card to Hospital to Get Ashcroft Authorization:
From tonight's interview with Larry King, via TPMMuckraker:
KING: The New York Times — which, as you said, is not your favorite — reports it was you who dispatched Gonzales and Andy Card to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital in 2004 to push Ashcroft to certify the President's intelligence-gathering program. Was it you?UPDATE: As some commenters note, Cheney's statement is likely to add fuel to the fire over whether Gonzales was being truthful about the scope of the TSP. At the very least, it suggests an understanding within the White House that it was the TSP that was at issue in the now-famous hospital showdown.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall — first of all, I haven't seen the story. And I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect.
KING: That would be something you would recall.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would think so. But certainly I was involved because I was a big advocate of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had been responsible and working with General Hayden and George Tenet to get it to the President for approval. By the time this occurred, it had already been approved about 12 times by the Department of Justice. There was nothing new about it.
KING: So you didn't send them to get permission.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't recall that I was the one who sent them to the hospital.
Hasn't Cheney just confirmed that Gonzales' sympathy call to Ashcroft did, in fact, involve the TSP?
Just to reiterate Adam's point, doesn't this statement vindicate the argument AL made and linked in the thread below?
Well, I don't recall having sex with Lindsay Lohan last week ... because I didn't. Damn!
Still, the occasion seems to have been a bit too dramatic for Cheney to've forgotten. I would like to have him repeat the same answer under oath -- he could scarcely plead executive privilege for a question he's already answered on national television.
I'm a little surprised that Cheney said it had been approved about 12 times. I thought the number was said to be more like 30?
As for Cheney not recalling: That's a bizarre thing to say. He and his advisers surely prepped him for this question. So he would have had a chance to review the facts. So if he really didn't recall, surely he would have sorted out in advance of the interview?
Heh, ordinary logic doesn't apply to Cheney. He'd just say that when he was on Larry King he was President of the Senate, not a member of the Executive Branch.
Mr. LEAHY: But you talked about this in the Larry King interview! Executive privilege can't possibly apply to something you've discussed on national television.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I don't recall appearing on Larry King.
Mr. LEAHY: Well, we have this tape. Perhaps viewing it will refresh your memory?
The VICE-PRESIDENT: But that tape would be hearsay!
Mr. LEAHY: I'm only showing you the tape to refresh your memory, Mr. Vice-President.
Mr. ADDINGTON whispers to the VICE-PRESIDENT.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: My counsel has informed me that the tape cannot be shown because the Federal Rules of Evidence interfere with the constitutional duties of my office.
You might be surprised. I doubt that Cheney gives a damn enough to be prepped.
In any event, and seriously, "I don't recall WHETHER" is very different from "I don't recall THAT"; the latter is a slightly cagey way of saying "no, I didn't." But I agree w/ the commenters that the real significance here is the implication that AG AG did indeed perjure himself.
--Persuasive prophecy, UVA 2L.
Ceterum censeo, Iran delenda est!
That suggests it was Bush who made the decision, not Cheney. And it certainly was Bush's decision to make the changes to the program that Ashcroft and Comey wanted since that decision was made when Mueller met privately with Bush (well, unless you hold the theory that Cheney was under the desk telling Bush what to say).
Speak for yourself! Anyway, did you not get your coupon in the mail?
The transcript:
SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.
If you hear that "the White House" did something, you can be forgiven for remembering that as synonymous with "the president himself." But in this administration, we know that the Veep exercises unusual authority.
Aieee! I thought it was from Paris Hilton, so I threw it away &washed my hands immediately.
Since when are the views of the legislative branch binding on the White House?
That's the relevant part of the quote. In that context it seems less likely it was Cheney initiating the call. Except for the puppet thing again, of course.
As for the hospital errand itself later that evening, by then perhaps Cheney was safe in an undisclosed location, biting the heads off puppies.
This is all pretty basic logic, reasoning, and evidence for anyone not blinded by their anti-Bush/Cheney derangement syndrome or as may be the case with Orin not blinded by the fact that his buddy/fellow DOJ'er Comey is involved hip deep in making this country far less safe and free than it was before his misguided and boneheaded power grab at the DOJ.
Comey is gone from the DOJ, and that is a very good thing. The bad part is that there are probably 50 to 150 other DOJ lawyers and US Attorneys that need to be gone and didn't get the boot or leave with him.
Says the "Dog"
Question2: After Meese, Reno, Ashcroft, Gonzales (Whom am I missing?), will anyone in future want to be AG?
Someone both honest and competent, let's hope.
Oh, yes, that seems much more logical. Does anyone actually understand this sentence?
What JYLD is inadvertently demonstrating is that the supporters of the President's surveillance program enjoy using the propaganda term "Terrorist Surveillance Program" to refer to whatever they might happen to have in their mind at a given moment. One day, Mike Hayden gives a briefing and the "TSP" is this limited narrowly-defined program that doesn't involve any sort of data mining or anything like that. Another day, Dick Cheney gives an interview and the "TSP" refers to an "entire range and panoply of programs and techniques." And when Alberto Gonzales testifies before Congress, it means one thing one day, and something completely different the next day. On and on with the game-playing and obfuscation.
And even though no one knows what the Terrorist Surveillance Program actually involves, because it's a secret, we can all be absolutely confident that it only involves surveillance of terrorists and not anything improper whatsoever. How do we know this? It's right there in the name, silly! And if you don't trust the government when they say that they only conduct surveillance on terrorists, you must be off your rocker, because everyone knows the government only does what it admits to doing and nothing more, particularly when it comes to secret programs.
"Someone both honest and competent, let's hope." I thought, and think, that Marc Racicot is both of those. And I was disappointed when he took himself out of the running for Bush's first AG. Now I think that he is honest and competent /and/ shrewd.
The topics that come before an AG now get so politicized that I am not sure one can have a Herb Brownell-type person in the office anymore. The opposition party in Congress would shred him to pieces if he kept his hed down, and call Justice unacceptably politicized if he responded.
The attacking the AG is a great surrogate for attacking muddying up the president. (I suspect the Treasury Secretary is more important in the long run. But it's too hard to understand what he actually does.) So even a really class-act candidate for the job would have to wonder about his future after Justice. And ask instead for the embassy in Rome.
"And even though no one knows what the Terrorist Surveillance Program actually involves, because it's a secret, we can all be absolutely confident that it only involves surveillance of terrorists". I know this was said in sarcasm. But I think it's a very funny statement. Somewhat Python-esque. I'd give the line to Eric Idle as news-reader: "And although they cannot say with certainty what is in the Bolton cheese shop, experts are fairly certain that it has something to do with . . . cheese."
Iran/Contra leaving many appalled at what we learned a few years later was Alzheimer's. Maybe Cheney thinks that's the way to go here.
If AG and a real AG is appointed who cares about this country, and I don't see how one gets confirmed if he/she doesn't, it's all over for Bush and Cheney. The ensuing storm will make Watergate look like small potatoes.
THAT is why AG AG will not step down, will not be fired, and will be Bush's last AG. Even if he's impeached &removed (fat chance), is Bush under any *obligation* to appoint a new AG?
I think not.
Excuse me? The VP doesn't run anything under my reading of the Constitution. Look to the outside-the-lines arrogance of "I DIDN'T GIVE INSTRUCTIONS." Errr....since when does the VP instruct cabinet officers to do anything?
Amazing, isn't it, that virtually every disaster of this Administration arises from Bush not sending Cheney to do VP-things, like attend the funerals of minor foreign officials and cut ribbons at IRS return-processing centers? Historians will speculate on the exact date of the coup d'etat that put Cheney in the Oval Office.
I find it both irritating and tedious.
Play on.
Larry King does not ask follow-up questions. His venue is the softest-pitch game in town.
Perhaps, "I won't recall", is more accurate.
I don't hold to that theory. Just one very much like it.
I know when *I* am caught doing something improper, I hate the game of "gotcha." Just like when *I* screw up, I'm a big advocate of not playing "the blame game." What's important is that we think of ways to make sure *I* don't screw up again (without, ya know, giving me less responsibility or power, which would just be going back to the blame game).
A few people will recall him with pride, and he'll consistently poll about 3% in surveys asking who the greatest president was, but his historical legacy will be all tarnish and no glory. The Democrats will write it because the Republicans won't lift a finger to stop them. In cruel irony to his 2000 campaign pledges, the second adjective attached to his tenure will be "divisive."
When America finally falls, and centuries go by, he won't even be recalled by historians as the, or even a, important cause of America's decline. The great conflicts of the first decade of the twentieth century will be reduced to a tempest in a teapot dome.
Bush will be remembered in whatever way is beneficial to the careers of historians any given time. When a "Bush Was Really Much Better Than You Think" monograph can get a young-scholar-on-the-make noticed, it will be written.
I know it sounds cynical. But I get summers off.
Perhaps so, but nonetheless isn't the idea that "Lincoln Was Really Much Better Than You Think" and "Bush: Was He Really the Greatest President After All?" sound incongruous, but "Bush Was Really Better Than You Think" doesn't?
I would trade it all for politicians that told the whole truth the first time. Until then, all we can do is scrupulously record every factual claim they make and then attempt to hold them accountable if they are later shown to have been lying.
Do you have a better plan?
There was, according to Comey, only one program. According to the Negroponte letter, that program was briefed to the Gang of 8 on March 10th, and it was called the "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
The program (apparently) expanded and changed over time, but it remained the "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Too inside-baseball for me, Hoosier. Jean Edward Smith? Why "Court-Packin'"?
But I predict that historians will never raise him above the bottom tier of presidents -- along with Grant, Harding, and Nixon.
Also, while "scandal-plaugued" and "divisive" will probably be used to describe Bush, I'm guessing the historians will focus even more on two things. First, the related drives to maximize the power of the executive branch (Nixonian plus) and to try to make the Republican Party the permanent majority party through unusually aggressive means (e.g., the K street protect). Second, the fundamental incompetence of the administration, from Katrina to Iraq.
I'm also hopeful that some of the excesses of the religious right -- Schaivo, anti-gay politics, and the anti-science positions too many Repubs have adopted -- will have turned enough people off during this administration that we will see a true waning of influence of that group. Too early to tell on that, however.
Finally, I'm amused by folks who still use the term "Bush derangement syndrome" to refer to critics of a President with one of the lowest approval ratings in history.
Smith wrote an editorial the other day suggesting that the Dems expand the SCOTUS in order to counter the extremist right wingers Bush has appointed. Since I know you've recently read Smith's bio of FDR, you'll probably find this somewhat ironic.
Ah so. Yes, that's an egregiously bad idea. Damn FDR ruining a perfectly good idea for posterity. (When, according to Smith, the Court wasn't really all *that* reactionary in 1936.)
EIDE: No love for Franklin Pierce?
I just want to maintain my epistemological skepticism. The future won't change the past (though perhaps I’m in the minority in saying that), but it will change History. Truman and Ike both went ahead in the polls of historians only when historians saw what came AFTER them. Viz., the 1960s. Truman's efforts on civil rights and urban economic development; Eisenhower's caution on Vietnam and avoidance of ideology in politics; these looked pretty far-sighted by '68.
And then the records began to open, and we found that Ike was in fact in charge of his administration. (And that HST was terrible racist, but . . .) In addition, to repeat myself, a new generation of historians, writing after the Vietnam War, needed something new to say.
But what 'hidden virtues' could the Bush Administration possibly be concealing from us? And how could they possibly outweigh /some/ of the damage that they have inflicted?
Mere Hypothetical Alert
If it turns out that historians of the future can document specific, significant domestic terrorist plots that we're broken up in the Bush years (and I certainly can't say they /won't/ find this in the record), Bush will look better than he does. He will have succeeded in doing what I, for one, would have called impossible on 9/12/01: Preventing another terrorist attack on US soil during his time in office.
If his successor is not so skillful or lucky at prevention of on-shore terror attacks, Bush will look even better.
This isn't a prediction. But it is a possibility. So I just cannot agree that we know what 'History will say' about his administration. Certainly, it would be stunning to see him out of the bottom quintile within my lifetime. But "the worst ever" is really hyperbolic. I am not sure who was the worst we've ever had. But I'm rather certain that it was either Pierce or Buchanan, and that Andy Johnson was not much better.
I suspect that Americans in the years to come will not remember Iraq as being comparable to the Civil War. And even quite serious abusers of presidential power can make a comeback in time: Witness the recent historiography on Polk.
I DO, however, have a shorter-term, prediction: BushII's presidency will help BushI rise in the scholalry estimation, much like JFK and LBJ made DDE look wise and cautious.
Iraq will be remembered as the Civil War? You BDSers really have no historical perspective. The Civil War was many orders of magnitude more devastating to America then any other conflict.
You MIGHT have missed the word 'not' in my post. It's a very small word, I know. But it affects the. . . um . . . meaning of the paragraph. Somewhat.
Does it /not/?
I appreciate the detailed reply explanation, but I fear I must not have been clear. I was attempting to agree, pretty much fully, with your first post, and I agree, pretty much fully, with your second post.
OK, I would probably put Harding in my bottom four, and maybe Nixon too. And I'll guess that future attacks, or lack thereof, will be spun both ways. For example, if there's another attack while Bush is president, his supporters will say that just shows he was right about how serious the threat was and/or that the Dems shouldn't have weakened whatever program would have stopped the attack. And if there's no attack during the Presidency of Hillary/Obama/Edwards/random Dem well, it's because of what Bush put in place.
But that's just quibbling around the edges. Again, I agree with what you say, and apologize for not being clearer about that initially.
BDS doesn't refer to all Bush critics, just the ones that are so deranged by their hate for him that they lose all sense of perspective. Those of his critics that claim he is trying to impose a Christianist facism on the US, or believe he is using the TSP as ruse to monitor domestic political opposition are examples of BDS sufferers. And of course the poster children of BDS are those that believe that it was a Bush-Cheney cabal that blew up the twin towers and WTC-7 and it was a missle not an passenger aircraft that hit the Pentagon. Obviously that definition doesn't include people that merely think he is incompetent, or dislike his policies on idealogical grounds.
There was a similar dynamic with Bill Clinton, with a similarly deranged segment on the right that belived that Bill was involved in a CIA drug an gun running operation out of Mena, AR, or that he had Vince Foster killed. Those were irrational beliefs. It was not irrational to think that Bill Clinton arranged an illegal SBA loan to bail out Jim McDougal in return for getting out of Whitewater, or that Hillary took a $100,000 gift from Tyson Chicken disguised as Cattle futures trades, or that Bill raped Juanita Broderick, sexually harrassed Paula Jones, lied to a GJ, etc.
Harding's is an interesting case for me, since he's been bifurcated: Diplomatic historians give him reasonably high marks these days. Though perhaps for simply deferring to Hughes, Hoover, and Mellon. Nixon is in a similar situation, though Joan Hoff has tried to reverse that "Good foreign policy/Bad domestic record" consensus. I don't think she's had much influence on the question.
Thanks for your thoughts. It is reassuring that there are two non-lawyers on VC.
What bothers me is the prospect of 7 years of incompetence at preventing terror, followed by a terror attack in 2009 that was set up during Bush's term.
Qaeda could nuke NYC the day after Hillary's inauguration, and the Republicans would blame her for failing to prevent it.
I lived in Tejas back in 2000, and I admired Bush so much that I voted to keep him as our governor. He has fallen short of my meagre expectations. And granting all of that, it's amatter of my intellectual integrity: I was /convinced/ after 9/11 that we'd see more terror attacks in the coming years. We haven't. This has been under Bush's watch, as they say. And his administration is conducting an aggressive (!) anti-terror policy.
It /may/ be just dumb luck. But if this had been the case under someone for whom I voted, I would be praising that president's skill at handling domestic security. So I have to give W. the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Well, your definition of "BDS" fits only a miniscule portion of the population, nobody that I've read on this blog, and nobody that I know personally (and I hang in liberal circles), with the possible exception of folks that are concerned that domestic spying/eavesdropping might possibly be used on political opponents -- there is something of a history of that in the U.S., you know.
Hoosier:
Stop putting insults against you into my mouth (um, keyboard)! I didn't find you long-winded, and I said I was unclear, not that you misread me.
I will have to correct you on one point, though: while I am a history PhD (Georgetown, 1998), I'm also a lawyer (Michigan 1986) and a law prof. But I secretly feel more solidarity with historians.
As to Nixon and Harding (as well as Grant), I think one has to factor in "incredibly corrupt/criminal" into the assessment of their job as President. If you look at that sort of thing as well as policies, I think they wind up at or near the bottom.
Well, yeah, if you count THAT . . .
I don't think that you made a bad career choice, for what it's worth. A close (academic) friend (Greek Political Philosophy;Philosophy of Law) and I are both very interested in law. We both kick ourselves for not at least trying to go the law prof route. The work is at least as interesting, and the money is much better. Plus it's so much easier to meet the publication requirements. (OK. That last was a joke. But my friend has published law review articles on Plato and on comparative con law. His dean says they don't 'count'; not peer-reviewed, you see.)
On the other hand, one does have to go, from what I can tell, to one of three law schools to get interviewed. So I probably would be adjuncting in some big city right now. If I were lucky.
My buddy is actually brilliant, however. So he actually blew it. Ha! What a loser!
Not to get off topic (feel free to follow this up by e-mail if you want. . . .) the grass is probably always greener, whatever you do. Yeah, law profs are paid more than history profs, and that's not a trivial difference. Law profs do generally have to publish less to get tenure, but in fairness, at least historically law profs didn't have a PhD done or mostly done to spin off into a book or articles when they first get the job.
On the other hand, without romanticizing undergrad and grad school students or colleagues, I think it's fair to say that law profs often think that they would have a purer (and in some ways more rewarding) academic experience in and out of the classroom if they weren't teaching at what is, at bottom, a trade/professional school.
Having said that, I'm happy to be in a law school.
Comey says, "I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure." Commenters: silence. Nobody says that he should have remembered a call from the President of the United States.
Except for Anderson, who immediately spins his faulty memory into "proof" that Cheney did it.
Who you believe and who gets a pass is all dependent upon WHAT you believe.
BTW, I think that Gonzales should resign/get fired, but that's for simple incompetence, not because he was reluctant to discuss classified information in an open hearing.
Yes, my opinion of Ashcroft has risen, ever since the hospital episode and others have come to light.
Racicot seemed like a decent guy, too. But he made the fatal mistake of stating that gays deserve some rights and a place within the GOP, and so the religious right, led by James Dobson, but an end to his consideration of that position.