McCain still won't get my vote

... even though he apparently speaks for me:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn't spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.

During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

"[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn't be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.

Me to you too, Senator Box Turtle. With all the love in the world.

Ashcroft as Brando, Bush as Sollozzo

The story James Comey recounted is scary enough as it is, but this, via Prairie Weather, is just too much:

So the next evening, the White House -- probably the President himself, by Comey's account -- calls Mrs. Ashcroft, and implores her to allow Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to come to GW Hospital to persuade John Ashcroft, in his weakened and drug-induced post-operative state, to sign off on the program, i.e., to overrule Comey even though Comey is the Acting AG. Comey gets wind of the impending meeting at the hospital, and he rushes to a waiting vehicle to get to the hospital -- using emergency equipment! -- before the White House Chief of Staff and Counsel get there. Comey (literally) runs up the hospital stairs to Ashcroft's room. While Comey is waiting for the two high-ranking White House officials to arrive, he calls the Director of the FBI for support, and then the FBI Director speaks to the AG's security detail and -- this is the best part -- "instructed the FBI agents present not to allow me [Comey] to be removed from the room under any circumstances"!

Yes, if you think this sounds familiar, it is -- it eerily resembles the scene in which Michael Corleone "protects" his father at the hospital in The Godfather. With Jack Goldsmith as Enzo the Baker, and Alberto Gonzales as McCluskey the crooked cop. The President, of course, is Sollozzo. Comey would be Michael, except that he's a good 14 inches taller than Al Pacino . . . . Oh, and then there's the bit about how Comey refuses to meet with Andy Card -- the President's Chief of Staff! -- at the White House without an unbiased third party witness (SG Ted Olson -- aka Tom Hagen/Robert Duvall).

And this is how the law is settled these days in the executive branch of the greatest democracy in the world.

P.S. It's probably safe to say this is the first time in history that anyone has ever drawn a parallel between John Ashcroft and Marlon Brando.

Is it too much to hope that McCluskey and Sollozzo get whacked in an Italian restaurant again?