Paul Krugman Has Ashcroft Spot On!

We all know he's a weasel, and I'm still resenting Ashcroft spending thousands of dollars on drapes to cover the nude statues. Perhaps that will be the man's legacy, that he protected us from too many bare tits. Krugman evaluates Ashcroft on the battle against terror in today's New York Times. First the report on the Detroit 3, which I've not seen much about lately.

First, there's the absence of any major successful prosecutions. The one set of convictions that seemed fairly significant — that of the "Detroit 3" — appears to be collapsing over accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. (The lead prosecutor has filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Ashcroft, accusing him of botching the case. The Justice Department, in turn, has opened investigations against the prosecutor. Payback? I report; you decide.)

Has anyone else heard about the botching of this case? And why isn't it getting more press. Is the liberal press sleeping on the job again?

I really like Krugman's take on Ashcroft's methods...

Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.

For an example of how Mr. Ashcroft shuts down public examination, consider the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former F.B.I. translator who says that the agency's language division is riddled with incompetence and corruption, and that the bureau missed critical terrorist warnings. In 2002 she gave closed-door Congressional testimony; Senator Charles Grassley described her as "very credible . . . because people within the F.B.I. have corroborated a lot of her story."

But the Justice Department has invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege" to prevent Ms. Edmonds from providing evidence. And last month the department retroactively classified two-year-old testimony by F.B.I. officials, which was presumably what Mr. Grassley referred to.

For an example of changing the subject, consider the origins of the Jose Padilla case. There was no publicity when Mr. Padilla was arrested in May 2002. But on June 6, 2002, Coleen Rowley gave devastating Congressional testimony about failures at the F.B.I. (which reports to Mr. Ashcroft) before 9/11. Four days later, Mr. Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference and announced that Mr. Padilla was involved in a terrifying plot. Instead of featuring Ms. Rowley, news magazine covers ended up featuring the "dirty bomber" who Mr. Ashcroft said was plotting to kill thousands with deadly radiation.

Since then Mr. Padilla has been held as an "enemy combatant" with no legal rights. But Newsweek reports that "administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention — that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological `dirty bomb' — has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used in court."

It appears the Padilla case is unravelling. Ashcroft blows another one? Three guesses on the result of those folks suposedly planning in Columbus to bomb a shopping mall.

What's worse here is that while I have never been enthusiastic about the war in Iraq, I watched the war on terror intently at the beginning, hoping and praying for our troops as we dug Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers out of Afghanistan and worked to free those people. I reported the wonderful stories about schools, the renewed aspirations for women. I KNEW we were doing the right theing. Then Bush dropped the ball, used bad intelligence to get us mired in Iraq. Now I can't trust a soul in that Administration. I was a supporter after 9/11, and Bush should be proud that as a Democrat supported his actions. He and Cheney and especially Ashcroft have squandered that support.

Miserable failure.