Leftblogs are boiling mad at James Comey's dramatic testimony about the 2004 trip by Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to then-AG John Ashcroft's hospital bed to pressure Ashcroft to approve the illegal NSA wiretapping program.

("Loyal Bushie" David Johnston of the NY Times featured Bush's role in ending the conflict by siding with Comey, but failed to report that Bush started the conflict by approving the blatantly illegal program and then personally calling Mrs. Ashcroft to arrange the shocking visit.)

Bush, Gonzales, and Card would have gotten their way if Comey hadn't raced over to the hospital and arrived before Gonzales and Card. Even more shockingly, Comey had to persuade FBI director Mueller to order the FBI agents outside the hospital room to ignore any order from Gonzales and Card to eject Comey. Ultimately, Comey and Ashcroft had to threaten to quit in order to get Bush to reluctantly agree to something resembling the rule of law - although the "legality" of the final action remains a deep dark secret.

New sign on the Highways!

Dispatch from a Hotel in Normal, IL - 12:15A CST

Karl Rove and the gang are at it again, this time it is to destroy the Democratic Governor of Kansas. Her mortal sin was to tell the truth about the Kansas National Guard equipment.

Tony Snow, living up to his name, started the snowball rolling by stating "Governor Sebelius never requested anything from the Federal Government." Today that ball was picked up by none other than Sean Hannity. He interviewed two idiots from Pittsburgh, PA, who have a morning show on 104.7 FM (a Clearchannel station) and XM Radio named Quinn and Rose, and accused Howard Dean of orchestrating the Governor's statement for political gain.

The story goes like this:

Sign our petition to Congress:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/106

On Thursday, the White House said it simply "lost" 5 million emails from 2003 to 2005, plus "thousands" more from RNC accounts.

You don't believe it? Neither does Senator Pat Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Watch his astonished and angry reaction:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041207A.shtml

Let's hope Leahy is right - that the "deleted" emails can be retrieved.

But in the meantime, it's time to demand full accountability from the person who is clearly responsible both for the illegal use of RNC email accounts and for the illegal deletion of emails: Karl Rove.

Humor is a funny thing. Show the same thing to various people, and some will think it's funny, others, not. I can only wonder why, out of the universe of possibilities, Karl Rove, noted as "Bush’s Brain," would choose to say, even "jokingly," that his hobby is "tearing the tops off small animals...headless"

It was only a joke, ya know, made by a man facing the pressures of increasing scrutiny.

But we do know that there's a correlation between cruelty to animals and sociopathic behavior.

"And what is the foundational characteristic of every sociopath? A profound, pervasive, fundamental lack of empathy. The sociopath attends to only his own needs, and feels only his own pain. If the pain of others interferes with his needs, it is casually ignored. And if the pain of others becomes his need, it is relentlessly pursued....empathy isn't administered as an injection; it is learned over time. The young child who throws a rock at a flock of pigeons isn't so much endangering a bird as he is giving us the chance to intervene at the crossroads: We can teach empathy, or we can encourage cruelty....

Six years too late, the NY Times finally realized that Karl Rove turned the entire U.S. government into an arm of the Republican Party.

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

If you're not a Republican, you've probably never read "The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai, published in 1973. During his reporting on Abu Ghraib, Seymour Hersh wrote:

The Patai book, an academic told me, was "the bible of the neocons on Arab behavior." In their discussions, he said, two themes emerged - "one, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation."

If you trace any Bush scandal to its source, you'll find yourself eye-to-eye with Karl Rove. To pick just a few out of today's headlines:

The U.S. Attorney scandal? Karl Rove.

The G.S.A. powerpoint? Karl Rove.

The Pat Tillman coverup? Karl Rove.

Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Bush's mega-scandal is the Iraq War. Who chaired the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which manufactured all the lies that sold the war to a nation traumatized by 9/11? Karl Rove, of course.

Dan Froomkin says Bush has a "Monica Problem"

"Will another presidency be tripped up by another Monica? As suspicions about the White House role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year continue to deepen, one of the people who could shed light on what happened -- Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison -- has suddenly decided to clam up, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination."

I usually agree with Froomkin, but this time I disagree - Monica Goodling isn't Bush's problem, she's Karl Rove's problem.

Goodling's taking the Fifth is confusing bloggers into thinking she committed a crime. But that's not why she refuses to testify.

She's not protecting herself - she's protecting her boss Karl Rove.

It looks like Henry Waxman is looking for the smoking emails. Nico at ThinkProgress has the story:

Multiple congressional investigations have uncovered evidence that White House appointees regularly communicate using email accounts provided by the Republican Party. As CREW has argued, such activity violates the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve such records.

The White House is offering to allow Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to interview with congressional committees investigating the firing of 8 U.S. attorneys, but will not allow them to go testify under oath.

Bush will speak to the nation this evening at 5:45 EST.