First I want to point out it was the TMPmuckraker blog that pointed to the information I'm using below. And it should be noted a poster on that blog also made the same comment I'm going to.
The question is how long the Cheney/Bush administration can claim that Gonzales was/wasn't talking about the 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' (TSP) … or was … or wasn't … errr … separate things … uh … whatever.
Titular president Cheney's recent interview with Larry King contains this fun tidbit:
Q In that regard, 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?
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.
Q 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.
Q 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.
(Interview of the Vice President by Larry King, CNN, White House press release, 07/31/07)
TPM noted the silliness of this “I don't remember” excuse, but as one of the follow up posters noted: “Wait…I thought the visit WASN'T about the TSP!!!”
At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.
Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.
(Documents Contradict Gonzales Testimony, CBS News, 07/25/07)
Hmmm, Gonzales doesn't remember except to assure us he wasn't at the hospital about the TSP. Cheney doesn't remember except to assure us it was about the TSP.
And today the Washington Post is reporting:
The Bush administration's chief intelligence official said yesterday that President Bush authorized a series of secret surveillance activities under a single executive order in late 2001. The disclosure makes clear that a controversial National Security Agency program was part of a much broader operation than the president previously described.
The disclosure by Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, appears to be the first time that the administration has publicly acknowledged that Bush's order included undisclosed activities beyond the warrant-less surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush confirmed in December 2005.
(NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort, Washington Post, 08/01/07)
So now we can really muddy the waters. Beyond “I don't remember” there is the “Well, we've really been doing a whole lot of secret crap to you that we're not gonna discuss”.
There's a bigger problem than the dishonesty regarding this subject. The Cheney/Bush administration considers their “war against terror” to be without borders … and that includes the United States of America. That means every one of us is a potential threat in the eyes of our current federal administration. We are being treated as the enemy!