The Bush administration has done many things that scrape way down near the bottom of the barrel, but perhaps the lowest was reached on the night of March 10 when John Ashcroft was the Attorney General and was lying in intensive care near death recovering from an emergency gallbladder operation. A National Security Agency electronic surveillance program secretly instituted after the 9/11 attacks was about to expire.  The program, which monitored phone calls and e-mail without warrants, had already been reviewed by the Justice department and ruled illegal. Deputy Attorney General James Comey refused to sign off on it

 In desperation the White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card rushed to the hospital and attempted to pressure Ashcroft into signing a letter declaring the program of spying to be legal. Ashcroft flatly refused to sign and reminded the two that James Comey was the acting Attorney General during his period of illness.

Even though this program was deemed illegal Bush still was going to authorize it but the threatened resignations of Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, James Comey and other top Justice Officials en mass caused Bush to back off. He then amended the surveillance program to omit certain objectionable and still secret elements.

Some Washington wag when hearing about this expressed hope that soon a Clinton would be elected so that some integrity would be restored to the White House.