Oh What a Tangled Web

Gonzo has been cautioned to have a very close look at his testimony, because the Senate investigators will be doing just that.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will review Alberto Gonzales' past statements to determine whether Gonzales lied to the committee in 2006 by saying there had been no internal Justice Department dissent over the legality of the president's Terrorist Surveillance Program (otherwise known as the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program). When confronted by the senators, Gonzales today offered a surprising explanation of his consistency and veracity: he repeatedly suggested there's a different intelligence program, other than the TSP, that Justice Department officials found legally dubious in 2004.

[...]

Whatever Gonzales expected to get out of today's hearing, he left the Senate having raised two lingering and mutually exclusive questions: whether the Bush administration has pursued a second secret, internally controversial intelligence program of dubious legality; or whether the attorney general of the United States lied under oath. Gonzales looked this morning like he had beaten back his political foes. What he probably didn't expect is that this afternoon, he became his own worst enemy.

  TPM Muckraker

But I don't understand why those questions should be considered mutually exclusive. The second secret program could exist quite happily alongside Gonzo's lies, couldn't it?

Schumer pointed out that in a June press conference, Gonzales confirmed that Comey was in fact talking about the "highly classified program which the president confirmed to the American people sometime ago" -- that is, the TSP. But Gonzales said at the hearing that shortly thereafter, he contacted Washington Post reporter Dan Eggen to retract the statement -- and then he stuck to his line about there being "other intelligence activities" that were at issue in March, 2004.

Will Gonzo go down on for George? There's a commutation waiting, so I don't see why not.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.