I happened to catch the replay on C-SPAN this morning of Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey’s address to the American Bar Association in which he laid out the case for granting immunity to giant telecom companies that allowed the Bush administration to spy on their customers.

“[The] specific identity of those who assist us with intelligence activities and the nature of their assistance must be protected as vital intelligence sources and methods. The risk of disclosing that kind of information is not a risk worth taking.”
- Mukasey

Despite the fact that my expectations for the speech and the new attorney general’s performance could not have been lower, both the content and delivery of the address were far worse than I could have imagined.

Mukasey read his speech like it was new material to him, like he’d been handed it in the limo that morning. His robotic performance brought to mind a hostage brought before cameras to read his ransom note — which prompts the question: What do the Bushies have on this man? Are they holding his family prisoners in Guantanamo? Are they threatening to shoot his dog? What other reason could there be for Mukasey to toss his reputation onto the crucible of the Bushies’ incompetence and corruption?

And then, three-quarters into his atonal droning, I found myself coming up off the couch when Mukasey made this outrageous assertion:

[The] specific identity of those who assist us with intelligence activities and the nature of their assistance must be protected as vital intelligence sources and methods. The risk of disclosing that kind of information is not a risk worth taking…

Seriously, did he look at the speech before he delivered it — or has Mukasey imbibed the Bushies’ Kool-Aid so deeply that he failed to grasp the tragic irony that, in 2003, his new masters blithely betrayed secret U.S. sources and methods — specifically a covert program that tracked blackmarket sales of terror weapons, in order to attack for political reasons the spouse of the covert agent in charge of the program, Valerie Plame Wilson?

Eventually, he raised the specter of the 9/11 attacks, of course, and suggested that the government needs American companies to fall in line in the phony war on terror, just like they did in the very real struggle against fascism in World War II. And then, finally, his odious, coulda-phoned-it-in reading aloud came to an end:

And of course, our efforts against that threat also must take place with scrupulous respect for civil liberties and within the rule of law. FISA modernization legislation is only one example of how we put in place a tool that we need to fight against terrorists, while protecting the rights of Americans. I recognize that as Attorney General I have to be committed to both of those goals. I am here to tell you that I am Thank you very much for inviting me today.

After those un-heartfelt words, he sat down — and like the true Bushie he has become, the attorney general refused to take questions from the audience.