Fineman: "that seemed to be the role THEY DELEGATED to the President"

[welshTerrier2]

ask yourself this: who exactly was Howard Fineman referring to when he told Olbermann on tonight's Countdown that THEY delegated an assignment to "the President"? Was it just Cheney? Cheney and Rove? Others?

the assignment he referred to was to handle the diplomacy around sending Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's hospital room to get Ashcroft to sign-off on a classified domestic spying program. apparently THEY delegated to bush the task of calling Mrs. Ashcroft to give her advance notice that Gonzales and Card were being sent to her husband's hospital room where Ashcroft was in very serious condition.

to support the claim that bush called Mrs. Ashcroft, the following was taken directly from a transcript of Comey's Senate testimony:

source: http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/files/comey.transcript.pdf

COMEY: The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident. And I was headed home at about 8 o'clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was -- on Constitution Avenue -- and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call...

SCHUMER: What's his name?

COMEY: David Ayers. That he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft from the hospital. She had banned all visitors and all phone calls. So I hadn't seen him or talked to him because he was very ill. And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.

SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?

COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.

[Kagemusha]

1. Uh, that's probably simply in the sense of 'left to the president'

stuff that wasn't the dirty work that they would do themselves, leaving to him the clean work, because that was a mutual method of operation and not some... Bush taking orders type of thing. Loose language on Fineman's part.

[napi21]

2. I don't think Rover is that close with Cheney, so I don't think it was those two.

It well could have been Cheney, Rummy (who was Cheney's GREAT FRIEND), and maybe some of the others at the Pentagon, or maybe it was just Cheney and Scooter. In any event, I think Cheney was behind the whole thing. It just smells like him.