That’s the bottom line. But we’re going to have to hack through thickets of obfuscation to get there. Work with me here:

Today, the VRWC needs to protect The Non-Answerer from truthteller Jim Comey. And Fred Hiatt comes through right on cue.

You remember Pepperdine, right? The school that tried to hire Ken Starr, even though he hadn’t finished burning through $20 million investigating a blow job as part of the VRWC’s failed attempt to bring Clinton down? Well, Fred Hiatt has turned over the Op-Ed pages to Pepperdine’s Christianist and Federalist Society operative Douglas W. Kmiec. And Doug—I hope I may call him Doug—really sits up and works:

James Comey’s Senate testimony on Tuesday was staggeringly histrionic. It has, as Sen. Arlen Specter suggested, the dramatic flair of the Saturday Night Massacre. Presidential emissaries seeking the signature of a critically ill man only to be headed off at the hospital room door by a Jimmy Stewart-like hero defending the law over the pursuit of power. Frank Capra, call your office.

There are several problems with this scene. First, the comparison to Watergate is wholly inapt.

Notice the inartful pivot in the word “scene.” Doug’s lead implies that the “scene” is at the hospital, but, with the word “Watergate,” he reveals that the “scene” he really has in mind is in the Committee room. So, the “histrionics” don’t apply to the grotesque “scene” of Gonzo and Card trying to force a sedated, suffering, post-operative patient flat on his back in a hospital bed to sign off on a program he’s refused to sign off on when well—and what that says about Gonzo, Card, and the man they service—or to Comey rushing to the room to prevent them from doing so, after a call from the sick man’s wife.

No, no. The “histrionics” have to do with—get this—“defending the law over the pursuit of power.” Well, good Rovian that he is, Doug goes straight for the enemy’s strength.** Here’s what he has to say:

Watergate involved a real crime — breaking and entering, with a phenomenally stupid coverup that also fit the definition of criminal obstruction. And the underlying motivation for Richard Nixon’s demise was raw politics. Comey’s tale lacks crime and this venal political intrigue.

“Comey’s tale lacks crime”?! Lacks “venal political intrigue”?!?! Doug, Doug—Little man, where have you been living?

Glenn Greenwald on the crime, and the intrique:

Comey then made clear that he and Ashcroft met, determined that the NSA program lacked legal authority, and agreed “on a course of action,” one whereby the DOJ would refuse to certify the legality of the NSA program. Yet even once Ashcroft and Comey made clear that the program had no legal basis (i.e., was against the law), the President ordered it to continue anyway. As Comey said: “The program was reauthorized without us and without a signature from the Department of Justice attesting as to its legality.”

Amazingly, the President’s own political appointees — the two top Justice Department officials, including one (Ashcroft) who was known for his “aggressive” use of law enforcement powers in the name of fighting terrorism and at the expense of civil liberties — were so convinced of its illegality that they refused to certify it and were preparing, along with numerous other top DOJ officials, to resign en masse once they learned that the program would continue notwithstanding the President’s knowledge that it was illegal.

The overarching point here, as always, is that it is simply crystal clear that the President consciously and deliberately violated the law and committed multiple felonies by eavesdropping on Americans in violation of the law.

Here’s the giveaway on how completely tendentious “scholar” Doug’s little piece is:

Look for any mention of Judge Jackson decision in ACLU vs. NSA, which ruled that Bush and whoever was only following his orders committed over thirty felonies in the warrantless surveillance program. Do you see it? I don’t. So it’s under appeal. And? (Does Our Doug ignore the decision because Jackson is black? Or because she’s a woman? Or because whatever Dear Leader does is legal? Who knows.)

Anyhow, Our Doug now goes on to discuss—and dismiss—the crime and political intrique he said were no part of the story. Here’s what I see as the nut graf—and I don’t even play a lawyer on TV:

Comey conceded that he had no idea whether the certification of the continuation of the surveillance program he was being asked to make had a basis in statute or regulation. In fact, it has neither. It was a “form and legality” determination that the president had self-imposed to internally discipline an exercise of power that necessarily must delicately balance national security and civil liberties.

Let’s try to penetrate the murk. First, let’s remember—as Our Doug oddly, or not, does not mention—that at the time of the hospital “scene,” Comey was acting Attorney General, because Ashcroft was ill. (Making it all the more strange that Card and Gonzales would invade his hospital room, against the wishes of his wife.) So, Kmeic, by his own admission, would ask Comey to certify something he did not know had a basis in statute or regulation (“it had neither”).

Why would it be OK for Comey, the Acting Attorney General, to sign of on a program he didn’t know was legal? Well, er, fuhrerprinzip. Of course, Kmeic uses fancier words, but that’s what they amount to:

[The certification] was a “form and legality” determination that the president had self-imposed to internally discipline an exercise of power that necessarily must delicately balance national security and civil liberties.

Translation: “When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.” Lovely!

What, in Doug’s alternate universe, is the real problem? Why, the very law that that Gonzo and Card wanted Ashcroft and Comey to certify they weren’t breaking!

Comey’s testimonial flourish is actually yet another rehashing of whether the president’s responsibility as commander in chief (under Article II) and the broad grant of all “necessary and appropriate” power given in military authorization by Congress trumps the ill-fitting FISA statute, which was drafted in peacetime and whose leisurely espionage structure arguably contemplates exceptions to its warrant regime premised on “other statutes.”

What a load of bollocks. As a child of six knows, at this point, FISA isn’t “leisurely” at all, because warrants can be granted retroactively, and the FISA court almost never turned down a warrant request.

Our Doug concludes with not with a flourish, but with a bathetic rhetorical collapse and a flurry of unclear referents:

Bush administration officials are often portrayed as seeking a revival of diminished executive authority. At this [what?] point, it [what?] simply would be useful if they [Who? All officials? All but Comey? And Ashcroft] understood it [what?] and did not engage in futile and ethically dubious maneuvers or contemplate resigning every time there is an honest disagreement over the scope of presidential power or its sub-assignment.

Memo from VRWC to Justice: Suck it up, and get on with the coup!

Memo from VRWC to People: Move along! There’s no story here!

Gosh, though, there are one or two naggling little details. Comey mentions one:

Gonzales was obviously wrong to think that the signature of a man who recused his office because of illness would have any legal purchase, and why Gonzales would pursue it from an official under sedation — if that is what was intended by his trip to the hospital — is mystifying.

Well, when you concoct obfuscatory theories, the facts do tend to mystify.

And here’s the other niggling detail that Comey mentions only in passing: Ashcroft, Comey, and many others threatened to resign. These guys aren’t pussyfooters. And they, unlike we, had some idea of the scope of the program. So, what was so bad about it?

Let’s circle back to Our Doug’s lead, because with winger operatives, the way they begin is a “tell”: it’s best way to know what they most want to conceal:

The comparison to Watergate is wholly inapt.

“At this point,” we have to assume that any Republican operative who’s still on board with Bush is lying. So we can just invert what he says. Meaning: The Bush warrantless surveillance program is exactly like Watergate. That’s what’s so bad about it.

The Bush warrantless surveillance program is ratfucking (search on “White House really wants”), just like we’ve said all along (2006 from McClatchy. Search on “politically explosive”).

** Hint to Doug: Leave snark to your betters, mkay? That joke about Frank Capra is just stupid. And calling Comey “an obviously admirable fellow“—is that patronizing, or what?

NOTE The last Op-Ed the VRWC had Doug write was on the greatness of Harriet Miers, by the way. It’s great stuff (“A former at-large member of the Dallas City Council…”). Clearly, Doug knows how to sing for his supper.

UPDATE Balkin asks, Is this the best they can do? He also gives two reasons why Bush, Gonzo, and Card were so desperate for the certification of a program that was so disgusting even Ashcroft wouldn’t sign off on it:

There are probably two reasons that Ashcroft’s certification was thought to be of such importance. The first was that DOJ sign-off was necessary to give some comfort to the NSA. If you were NSA General Counsel, how would you react if the President asked you to engage in conduct that is on its face criminal; if you learned that Jack Goldsmith and John Ashcroft of all officials, concluded that there was no legal way around the statutory restriction and refused to be associated with it; and if the only justification the President offered you for obeying his order was that he was adopting David Addington’s, uh, shall we say idiosyncratic, view of the Commander-in-Chief Clause, notwithstanding that such attorneys as Goldsmith and Ashcroft thought it was untenable?

Would you ask your employees to go ahead and do things that FISA prohibits under those circumstances?

Second, the AG signature might have been necessary to induce the requisite private actors — telcom companies in particular — to continue to go along with the program.

Excellent point on the telcos.