Keeping it as simple as possible, since it’s a new Watergate almost every day with this crowd:

(1) Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department considered firing 26 US Attorneys, not just the eight that Gonzales testified to under oath just last week. If you came in late, the Bush administration has sought to stuff the federal justice system, Third World autocracy style, with party loyalists, and the Attorney General of the United States is a liar.

(2) On a separate issue, Gonzales also pushed his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to sign off on a plainly illegal domestic surveillance program. But Ashcroft — John freaking "Let The Eagle Soar" Ashcroft — wouldn’t go for it, and the Justice Department — which had itself concluded that the program was illegal — damn near had mass resignations in protest of the program. But the illegal warrantless eavesdropping continued.

Ashcroft was in the hospital at the time, and his duties had been assumed by Acting Atty. Gen. James Comey, whose testimony this week might soon equal John Dean’s in historic importance. Gonzales’ rush to Ashcroft’s bedside — accompanied by Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card — was an attempt to circumvent Comey’s input and get a signature from a previously reliable Bush team player.

Bush was asked today, point-blank, about his personal involvement, his answer was a complete dodge, hiding behind 9-11 while refusing even to address the simple inquiry about propriety and his own responsibility.

Watch for yourself:

(3) As Glenn Greenwald points out, since we can be certain that Bush ordered the surveillance to continue, despite his own Justice Department’s conclusion that the program was illegal, the US President knowingly broke the law.

PS — As of the evening of May 17, neither ABC nor CBS have so much as mentioned Comey’s testimony.