They tried to reign in Bush's war on terror. They paid a price for it.

Palace Revolt

They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it.

By Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - James Comey, a lanky, 6-foot-8 former prosecutor who looks a little like Jimmy Stewart, resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. The press and public hardly noticed. Comey's farewell speech, delivered in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, contained all the predictable, if heartfelt, appreciations. But mixed in among the platitudes was an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right—and to doing the right thing—whatever the price. These people," said Comey, "know who they are. Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn't have it any other way."

One of those people—a former assistant attorney general named Jack Goldsmith—was absent from the festivities and did not, for many months, hear Comey's grateful praise. In the summer of 2004, Goldsmith, 43, had left his post in George W. Bush's Washington to become a professor at Harvard Law School. Stocky, rumpled, genial, though possessing an enormous intellect, Goldsmith is known for his lack of pretense; he rarely talks about his time in government. In liberal Cambridge, Mass., he was at first snubbed in the community and mocked as an atrocity-abetting war criminal by his more knee-jerk colleagues. ICY WELCOME FOR NEW LAW PROF, headlined The Harvard Crimson.

They had no idea. Goldsmith was actually the opposite of what his detractors imagined. For nine months, from October 2003 to June 2004, he had been the central figure in a secret but intense rebellion of a small coterie of Bush administration lawyers. Their insurrection, described to NEWSWEEK by current and former administration officials who did not wish to be identified discussing confidential deliberations, is one of the most significant and intriguing untold stories of the war on terror.

These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, Goldsmith and the others fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. They did so at their peril; ostracized, some were denied promotions, while others left for more comfortable climes in private law firms and academia. Some went so far as to line up private lawyers in 2004, anticipating that the president's eavesdropping program would draw scrutiny from Congress, if not prosecutors. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men.

full article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/

this that renews your hope that everyone in government is not crooked, paid-off, or too whimpy to do what is right...

Fitzgerald! I believe that this singular act may very well be what will help Fitzgerald bring down the very people in this administration who outed Plame and why.

"Earlier this year, after the disclosure of internal administration memos that seemed to condone the torture of suspected terrorists overseas, Comey pushed aggressively for the Justice Department's memos to be released to the media and for controversial legal analyses regarding the use of torture to be rewritten."

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1098217052950

that the Bush Neo-con cabal must be cursing daily.....I think when the story is told, Comey will go down as a very important patriot in the bringing down of this administration.

:patriot:

about foreign espionage by the neocons at the Pentagon, WHIG, and OVP.

This is probably the most overlooked, but one of the most important, motivations behind the rebellion at Justice and the decision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the career intelligence community to support the prosecution of Bush-Cheney.

See, http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/153414.html ; http://eddie-c.dailykos.com/tag/Larry%20Franklin; http://www.franklingate.com/aipac-cheney.htm

the Plame-Wilson investigation. That's got to be the one thing Gonzales did right. See? There is a God.

some of bush's inner circle believe he's full of shit. Of course we see how that is dealt with, no dissent is allowed so they're given the boot. We need a lot more people inside government to come forward and say, "enough"!
This maladministration must be stopped, they're completely out of control. This "war on terror" bullshit is just an excuse for them to take total control, to rule with an iron fist with no oversight whatsoever.
I hate these people with every fiber of my being, they are the antithesis of what our country supposedly stands for. My only hope is that all of the investigations into this criminal cabal bear fruit and that they're banished from our government. My only hope.

"a healthy debate has at last begun"

There is no true justice for these people and they deserve not to be among us. And I do not say this lightly, nor out of anger.

NoFederales

Anyone, and I mean anyone who calls themselves a Republican now is as guilty as the 'good' Germans. This is not a test. Our lives are at stake, skrew the debate, stop paying taxes.

Rose Society. They are revered and loved by people who know, but they are dead nonetheless.

who've had the wisdom & integrity to put principle above politics. May their days in the wilderness of political exile be brief. If balance is to be restored to government, these paleo-conservatives must take back their own party :thumbsup:

K & R

...laws & not men -- just as our our law requires.

Like they are educating our children on the country and their future going to hell. They are drunk for power, quit our manufacturing jobs, maxed out the credit cards, and say the only way they will ever leave is over their dead voting machine contracts.

What interest me in all of this is how the world is forming around us. Somewhere in China and India is a room full of young people that make a dollar an hour that read and talk about all of this for their country. Where we lead a busy life there are professionals in other countries that don't let one imperial/fascist gesture or move on boards like these go unrecorded.

I wish there was television show where the educated put their predictions to when the next nuclear bomb falls in war? That begs the question when will the second one fall?

Somebody needs to move up the Doomsday Clock- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_clock

Nominated for Greatest Page.

people are fighting.

right across party lines, across government agencies, across corporations, religion, economic classes...

:kick:

And in Newsweak no less!

Could the worm really be starting to turn?

Thank god there are still some people involved in this think with some integrity and thank god Comey has time to install Fitzgerald has the Special Prosecutor. There's still a chance that these bastards might be brought to justice.

newspeak angling for a pulitzer.

good read though. Interesting look at Goldsmith's behind the scenes effort to reverse the damage done from his torture memo and have it repealed.

In the linked article above, ICY WELCOME FOR NEW LAW PROF., Goldsmith is panned for penning a March draft memo arguing that Central Intelligence Agency officials could transfer Iraqi detainees out of their native country for interrogation without violating the Geneva Convention.

Apparently he changed his mind and tried to have his opinion removed from the justifications the administration was using at the time. He was pushed aside and his original opinion prevailed, despite his subsequent protests.

this illegal,out of control admininstration. Is Addigton being set up as a sacrificial lamb?

I have sent it to my entire email list.
Thanks for posting.

deserve the recognition. It always bothered me how someone like Fitzgerald may have gotton the job ...Comey!

he chose Fitzgerald. All along, I've had doubts at times about anyone who was a Bush administration appointee, like Comey, and whether he could be trusted. This article clears up those doubts. I guess the Bush Cabal couldn't corrupt everyone.

Then they were going to install Fitzpatrick to be Fitz's boss, but he had to recuse himself because of ties to Abramoff. I guess their thinking was another Irishman could influence Fitz, or fire him. Glad that didn't work out.

Hopefully, these real Conservatives will rescue the Republican party from the criminals who have taken it over ~ the more of them who speak out, the more courage it will give to others to do so.

The fact that they are now being identified shows that the house of cards is falling, imo. There were others also, like Paul O'Neill, and they went after him too. But how many of their own party who disagree with them, can they continue to smear, while promoting the criminals, like Gonzalez, Bolton, before even Republicans finally begin to wake up? It isn't just liberals or anti-war people anymore, it's their own party!

Great article ~