Andrew Card in the News

As if we needed any reminders of Andrew Card's role in the Bush White House, the current news is all about the testimony of James B. Comey. While John Ashcroft was in the hospital, Comey was acting Attorney General. When Comey refused to sign the order to allow the warrantless wiretapping they tried to make an end-run around the acting Attorney General and get Ashcroft to do it in the hospital:

Comey said he received a call from Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres. Ayres relayed the fact that Ashcroft's wife, Janet, had just received a call from the White House that Gonzales and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. were en route to the hospital.

Mrs. Ashcroft was upset because she had forbidden visitors and phone calls; her husband was recuperating from surgery the previous day.

Suspecting an end run was in the works, Comey ordered his security detail to head for George Washington University Medical Center

[...]

Shortly thereafter, Comey said, Gonzales — carrying an envelope apparently containing the presidential spying order — arrived with Card.

"They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there: to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was," Comey said.

"And Atty. Gen. Ashcroft then stunned me," Comey continued. "He lifted his head off the pillow and, in very strong terms, expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact … drawn from the hourlong meeting we'd had a week earlier … and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general.' "

Card and Gonzales then left, he said.

According to Comey, Card called later to angrily demand that he meet him at the White House. "I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness," Comey said.

"He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well,' " Comey testified. "And I said again, 'After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness." Comey then tracked down Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson at a dinner party, and Olson agreed to be the witness. After meeting with other Justice officials at department headquarters, Comey said he and Olson headed to the White House about 11 p.m. but that nothing was resolved.

Comey said the White House renewed the program the next day without his approval.

This is the guy they think represents "high ethical standards".