Jonah could not be more right about the injustice done to AG Ashcroft. But it’s worth remembering that this whole episode provided what might have been the best evidence that Jamie Gorelick should have been disqualified. Because Ashcroft’s chief accuser turned out to be none other than … Jamie Gorelick. Yes, she would not step down as a Commissioner and publicly testify under oath as a witness, subject to cross-examination, to attempt to rebut Ashcroft; but she saw no problem in outrageously unburdening herself in a Washington Post op-ed – in which she accused the Attorney General of the United States of giving false testimony!

Imagine for a moment that you are a key witness in a major trial and the judge, in the middle of the trial before all the facts are in, decides to publish a widely circulated newspaper column that says you’re testimony was “simply not true.” What would one say about the integrity of such a proceeding? Most of the time, one hopes the Washington Post would say such a thing smacked of a Kangaroo Court. In this instance, though, when it came to throwing a lifeline to Gorelick, the paper somehow managed to get past such qualms.

The administration decided the AG was not worth defending against Gorelick’s claims. I think that was an egregious misjudgment, and here’s why, if you’d like to stroll down memory lane. And for more on the conflict over the wall and the three-ring-circus that was the 9/11 Commission, there’s also this.