Gonzales at the Sickbed: One More Reason Alberto Needs to Find a New Job

Thanks to Congressional testimony this week by former Justice Department official James Comey, we now know that in 2004 Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card, both then White House advisers, paid a visit to the sickbed of the Attorney General John Ashcroft in a bizarre effort to have the ailing official sign off on a controversial warrantless wiretapping program.

To his credit, Ashcroft refused to do so, Comey said.

Even in the topsy-turvy world of the Bush White House, this attempted manipulation of a very sick man by two senior Bush advisers takes the cake for unadulterated audacity. On its face, the actions of Gonzales and Card appear to be an deceptive way of pushing forward a plan they knew to be illegal.

These are not the actions of honorable public servants. But they are the actions of men who'll do almost anything—even deceitful things—to get their way and serve their president.

This man is the now the United States Attorney General. But his actions as the White House lawyer show that he has been—and still is—a partisan political hack, unworthy of his high office.