In hair-raising testimony before a Senate committee yesterday, Jim Comey,
the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, described what might be
called the Wednesday Night Massacre of March 10, 2004. Gonzales, then the White
House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card staged a bedside
ambush of Attorney General John Ashcroft while he lay in intensive care. Comey,
serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's incapacitation, testified
about how, on a tip from Ashcroft's wife, he intercepted the pair in Ashcroft's
hospital room.

"The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr.
Card," Comey told the spellbound senators. "They came over and stood by the
bed." They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on an eavesdropping plan that Comey and
others at the Justice Department had already called legally
indefensible.

Ashcroft "lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed
his view of the matter" -- that Comey was right. "And as he laid back down, he
said, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is
the attorney general.' And he pointed to me."
Gonzales and Card "did not
acknowledge me," Comey testified. "They turned and walked from the
room."...

Despite public pleas from a "lonely" Specter, the other Republicans on the
committee didn't risk an appearance. Even the White House declined to counter
Comey, who has a reputation for honesty. "You've got somebody who has splashy
testimony on Capitol Hill -- good for him," presidential press secretary Tony
Snow dodged.

In truth, nothing Snow could have said would have matched Comey's
testimony. Comey recounted how, while driving home at 8 p.m. on that day in
2004, he got word that Mrs. Ashcroft had received a call -- possibly from
President Bush himself -- to say Gonzales and Card were coming.

"I told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington
Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very
quickly," Comey testified. "I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up
the stairs with my security detail. . . . I raced to the hospital room,
entered." The room was dark, and Ashcroft was "pretty bad off."

In Comey's account, he got FBI Director Robert Mueller to tell his agents
guarding Ashcroft not to let Card and Gonzales evict Comey from the room. A few
minutes after the bedside confrontation, Card called the hospital. He "demanded
that I come to the White House immediately," Comey testified. "I responded that,
after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a
witness present."

"He replied, 'What conduct? We were just there to wish him well.' " After Card
demanded to know if Comey was "refusing to come to the White House," Comey, with
the solicitor general, finally arrived at the West Wing at 11 p.m. His narrative
covered the next two days, ending when Bush intervened and avoided a spate of
resignations.

Specter invoked the firing of the Watergate prosecutor. "It has some
characteristics of the Saturday Night Massacre," he said. And the senator left
little doubt about whom he blamed.

"Can you give us an example of an exercise of good judgment by Alberto
Gonzales?" he asked.

This time, Comey had no narrative. "Let the record show a very long pause,"
Specter said.