May 16, 2007

Fun Tidbit from Comey’s Testimony

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I wrote yesterday about how former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s testimony before Congress shed even more light on why Alberto Gonzales is unfit to be Attorney General, and why Gonzales’ behavior during the warrantless wiretapping episode rendered his nomination disgraceful from the beginning. (For an in-depth examination of all of Comey’s testimony, see Glenn Greenwald.)

Today, I found this entertaining tidbit from Comey’s testimony. Comey is speaking with Arlen Specter, senator from Pennsylvania.

SPECTER: Can you give us an example of an exercise of good judgment by Alberto Gonzales?

[Gap in testimony.]

SPECTER: Let the record show a very long pause.
COMEY: It’s hard — I mean, I’m sure there are examples. I’ll think of some. I mean, it’s hard when you look back. We worked together for eight months.
SPECTER: That’s a famous statement of President Eisenhower about Vice President Nixon: “Say something good.” “Give me two weeks.”
COMEY: Right.

Full transcript available here.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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