I Need A New Headline

I've already used all the variations on "You've got to be kidding" or "Unbelievable" and there are only so many ways of expressing the reaction I feel when the Bush administration is revealed, yet again, in its full-bore, no holds barred contemptability. Yet, this has happened so often now that I am, for fear of repetition, speechless when it comes to a suitable headline.

Today's episode:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.

The department's Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval.

At the time, the office said it could not obtain security clearance to examine the classified program.

Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.

Uh, what? Haven't we been told over and over again not to worry our pretty little heads about the lack of Congressional briefing and oversight because the lawyers in the administration had looked at it, and said it was OK? And now, well, we discover that the lawyers in charge of making sure those lawyers were on the up-and-up, who we already knew had been shut down, were shut down by the President himself?

(In my head, I keep hearing a voice calling "Richard Nixon, white courtesy phone, please. Paging, Richard Nixon....")

"It was highly classified, very important and many other lawyers had access. Why not OPR?" asked Specter, R-Pa.

"The president of the United States makes the decision," Gonzales told the committee hearing, during which he was strongly criticized on a range of national security issues by Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel's senior Democrat.

You can perhaps see my problem with the speechlessness thing.

Remember back when Gonzales was being confirmed, and people were expressing doubts that the President's own lawyer would be independent enough to head the Department of Justice, since, like, sometimes the DOJ has to investigate the White House? Funny how that worked out, huh? Does it sound like Gonzales argued with him at all? Did he suggest that, although of course the President makes the decision, he might want to make a different one here? What do you think?

In some alternate reality universe, a President, being sworn to uphold the Constitution, might have felt uncertain about a program with such far-reaching privacy implications. He might, despite having assurances from the lawyers down the hall, think it important to have review from some other trusted legal authorities, just to prevent a possible "yes-man" response in his lawyers leading to a Constitutional crisis, and violation of his oath. He might even have asked for an OPR opinion. But that would certainly be an alternate reality. Like the one I grew up in.