Reconsidering Ashcroft — or not

May 20, 2007

James Comey’s startling testimony earlier this week stunned much of the political world, but for many of us on the left, there was one point that was particularly hard to digest: in this dramatic tale, John Ashcroft was (gulp) something of a hero.

Peter Baker and Susan Schmidt report today that the revelations are leading some observers to reconsider the former Attorney General in a new light.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised his “fidelity to the rule of law.” The Wonkette Web site posted the headline: “Ashcroft Takes Heroic Stand.” Under a similar headline, “John Ashcroft, American Hero,” Andrew Sullivan expressed astonishment on his Atlantic magazine blog that “John Ashcroft was way too moderate for these people. John Ashcroft.”

Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal group People for the American Way and one of Ashcroft’s strongest critics over the years, said the incident told more about his successor, Gonzales, who was one of the two Bush aides at the hospital that night.

“I did not think it was even possible to make John Ashcroft into a civil libertarian,” Neas said in an interview. “But somehow Alberto Gonzales for at least one moment managed to make John Ashcroft into a defender of the Constitution.” […]

“He was a voice for moderation on a wide range of issues that he never got credit for because he did it the right way, behind the scenes,” said another former official who asked not to be named. “On many, many issues the administration has gotten itself in trouble on, if they had listened to his advice, they would have been better off.”

Indeed, Baker and Schmidt point to a variety of instances in which Ashcroft took on the Cheney/Rumsfeld axis, including opposition to indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay and the administration’s model for military commissions.

All of this is true, of course, but let’s not go overboard. Ashcroft starts to look sensible and reasonable in large part because his successor is such a joke.

This is, after all, the same Ashcroft who relentlessly pushed some of the most dangerous provisions of the Patriot Act, endorsed torture, made poor choices, showed bizarre priorities, suffered crushing defeats at the Supreme Court, issued highly dubious terrorist threat warnings, fought with Congress over documents to which lawmakers were legally entitled, and may have even fibbed in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. And that’s not even including the “Spirit of Justice” incident.

Confronted by Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales over warrantless surveillance, Ashcroft did the right thing and defended the rule of law. But I’d probably hold off on sending him an ACLU membership application.

The drugs might have had something to do with it too.

  • We’re setting the bar pretty low for heroism, aren’t we? Maybe Ashcroft was resisting the program as a matter of principle, but it seems just as likely that he didn’t want his name tied to the inevitable scandal that would arise from its illegality.

    Sure, he didn’t sign off on it; instead he pushed off responsibility to his deputy, who fortunately also refused. Then, the Bush team went ahead and continued the illegal program anyway. Ashcroft & Comey didn’t do anything else except resign, without any mention of the program.

    I feel like we’re giving accolades to a man because, even though he knows there’s a crackhouse in his neighborhood and never bothered to report it to the police, at least he didn’t buy any drugs from it.

    Who knows? If Ashcroft is later revealed to be one of the sources of the numerous leaks regarding the illegal programs, I’ll consider him to be a man of principle who truly cares about the rule of law. Right now he just looks like someone who was saving his own ass and trying to avoid trouble.

  • Bad can always look good, when it’s compared to worse. It’s been used by those insidious, door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesmen for decades. It’s been employed by used-car hucksters, telemarketers, and politicians on a regular basis. It’s even being used today by the “10 little neocons” in their GOP babblespeak events. It is the primo tool to use when you want someone to lower their standards and accept something that’s less-than-acceptable.

    John Ashcroft is just that—“less than acceptable.” The last thing that Progressives and Liberals need to do is start dressing JohnBoy up in a good-guys costume.

    Unless, of course, you want this guy for your next Pres(ide)ent. After all, look at all the names promoting this guy. He’s already been made more “positive” than Gonzo—someone’ll be pushing a “draft John” campaign within the week, at this rate….

  • I’m also reminded of the scene in the movie “Quiz Show”, in which Charles Van Doren testifies before Congress and makes a moving speech in which he admits he’s been a cheater. After numerous senators congratulate him for his testimony, one final senator says:

    “I’m happy that you’ve made the statement. But I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don’t think an adult of your intelligence should be commended for simply, at long last, telling the truth. “

  • I think the difference between John Ashcroft and a lot of these people is that Ashcroft is basically a principled, scrupulous guy (his values are just a little too authoritarian and patriarchal for us) while Bush and your average, standard Republican politician is really just out for himself/herself, and that’s the standard they act by- what will help me. The difference between Ashcroft and a lot of the religious wingnuts is, Ashcroft probably believes in (his interpretation of) the constitution, while the even-more fanatical religious righties secretly want to overthrow the government and replace it with something they want.

    Ashcroft couldn’t be pushed to approve something he honestly knew broke the bounds of well-established law. It doesn’t mean we’ve got to like him now or anything, except relative to the people who were trying to push him.

  • I prefer Ashcroft over those bastards any day- I’m just saying, let’s not move the goalposts.

    There are right fanatics, and then there are right fanatics.

  • I think Swan (#6) has it right. Go look at the history of the German opposition to the Nazis: by the time 1944 came along, everyone to the left of very conservative Army officers who had gone along with practically everything up to the events of 1943 (when they started visibly losing) was gone – dead or in concentration camps – and it was these few who found their principles and made the attempt they did. I only hope we don’t get that far. But right now, anyone whose principles work on any level to oppose anything about this evil, fascist coup d’etat masquerading as a government, is someone I’ll say “thank you” to. I’ll disagree with them as thoroughly as anything, once the Main Threat is dealt with.

    Remember, Stalin was no “believer in freedom” when it came to fighting the Nazis, but the Soviet contribution to the struggle was crucial to the outcome.

  • I don’t want to praise Ashcroft too highly — or at all, really. But this underscores something I’ve said before in various venues. It used to be, not so long ago, that what distinguished Liberals and Conservatives was less a disagreement about ends than about means. We might have disagreed on how to interpret the Constitution, but no one at either end of the spectrum would have dared to suggest that it simply did not apply. And no one would have dreamed of publicly advocating torture. That’s what makes this bunch radical, in the fullest and truest sense of the word.

  • Roddy is correct. Both left and right and middle cared about the country but had honest disagreements. Bush and his group embody the “me” generation. Bush’s ego is more important than thousands of lives. Rove et al read Brave New World, 1984, etc and didn’t see cautionary tales: they saw “how to” manuals.

  • Oh, SHIT…

    Y’know, I was just over reading a story about Gonzalez on Yahoo , when I noticed one little paragraph…

    “Gonzales will be in Europe next week, visiting his counterparts in Hungary and Switzerland before joining a conference of leading industrial nations Thursday in Germany. He will be back in Washington on Friday — the night before the long Memorial Day weekend and a planned congressional vacation.” (bold added)

    If he does resign this week, anyone interested in taking bets on another ‘interim’ appointment by Bush (which would, conveniently, take him right to the end of his term)?… In the same story, they had been talking about needing to get a replacement for McNulty confirmed by the Senate… Why do I sense at least one (McNulty) and maybe two (Gonzalez) ‘recess appointments’ about to be shoved down Democracy’s throat?

  • I don’t even think James Comey is a hero.
    Umm, this all happened in 2004 and this is 2007. The fact that we are FINALLY hearing about it now is evidence that there were NO heroes in this scenario.

  • Give Ashcoft credit that her stood up to the Bushies from his hospital bed. BUT don’t forget the reason he is no longer a Senator is the people of his home state voted for a dead guy rather than have him remain in office.

    That can’t be a good sign.

  • Ashcroft was quite the civil libertarian when it was Bill Clinton who wanted to give cops more powers to crack down on militias after the OKC bombing.

  • Castor Troy, @11

    Yeah, I worry about those recess appointments also. Reid is, suppposedly, planning to have some Senators keep the Senate formally “open” throughout the summer recess by having a few of them show up every few days but even that might not be enough. It seems to me that, to prevent Bush from making recess appointments, the Senat would have to stage a full, 24/7, sit-in strike.

  • John Ashcloth, that big loveable guy, had a voice like an angel. He was the Gomer Pyle of fascists.

  • The Bush administration is leaving behind a growing hoarde of sorta, kinda, semi-better than we thought at the time discards. It adds up to nothing. It’s just the debris from an overfilled garbage truck driving down the freeway.

  • I, too, have read other places about a concern of Bush appointing an AG during the Memorial Day recess.
    Why did they schedule the vote before and not after?

    BUT….. if Gonzales is not AG, can be made to testify since he is no longer a cabinet member?

  • I’m finding strange alliances on certain issues when it comes to Bush and Co. This Ashcroft revelation is just one. Recently at the GOP debate, Jon Paul espoused the only opinion on the Iraq War, and President Bush, that I agreed with. And he’s a libertarian!

    It seems there could be a growing alliance across party lines consisting of those who wish to defend the Constitution (Dems and Libertarians) and the Bush Republicans.

  • Recess appointments? Maybe notHere’s most of a blurb from U.S.News & World Reports:

    We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie “pro forma” session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he’s the new sheriff in town.

  • JoeW, @23

    Yea, that’s what I was thinking of, @15. But, if a Memorial Day *weekend* is likely to prove long enough for Bush to consider it a “recess”, 10 day breaks will seem like a long holiday to him. Too long to hold off such “urgent” things like appointments.

    There are some guidelines about what’s “urgent” eanough for a recess appointment but when has Bush ever felt bound by guidelines? Even laws don’t stop him from doing what he wants to do, just to show he can. I think the only solution would be to institute a law which would make recess appointments automatically invalid and requiring Senate confirmation the moment Senaqte is back in session.

  • libra @ 24, I think this would cross too many lines from a regime never once noted for it’s honesty. The Supreme Court that allows such a brazen disregard hasn’t yet visited even the wildest wingnut dream.

    Bush can only slap congress so far, before he starts slapping repubs out of re-election in ’08. We’re at the point of the election cycle where that becomes more obvious by the day. He’s not only a lame duck, he’s an unpopular lame duck. Repubs will have to balance their loyalty to a brief controversial appointment by an unpopular President with their very careers. Pass the popcorn.

  • NOW I’M REALLY SCARED. I’ve been saying that the Executive branch has joined forces with the Judicial branch and since between the two they control all the troops, the guard, the FBI, the police etc. they render the Legislative branch powerless with nobody to even enforce subpoenas.
    We now have a War Czar which wasn’t needed for what has happened but rather for what is about to happen(Iran attacks).
    And now this:

    With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.
    In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”

    Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”

    He laid this all out in a document entitled “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51” and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20.”

    Congress must stop Bush now before it is too late and they are unable to do it. Get the troops back into the country as quickly as possible. Start impeachment proceedings against Bush/Cheney/Gonzales and other co-conspirators. This is not a conspiracy ‘theory’, it is actually happening. Time to stop them is running out. Please contact everyone you know about Bush’s latest “catastrophic emergency plan” because it’s time to prepare. Congress is still suffering from the idea that it can’t happen here in spite of how “obvious” the plan is. Everything is already in readiness. The time to stop Bush is now. We won’t be able to later and just like he was wrong about the civil war in Iraq, the bloody civil war here would be just as bad. Must impeach Bush/Cheney now.

  • Asscroft changed hiring rules eliminating the screening of DOJ hires by a comittee of senior attorneys who werent political employees so that Monica Goodling could flood the DOJ with Republicantards from fourth tier law schools.

  • Making Ashcroft into a hero is like pining for Nixon or Reagan, who both look good in compariosn to Sonny Bush. We don’t really know what happened before,during, and after the hospital incident. Evidently there was open warfare within the hermetically sealed doors and windows of the regime, and Bush had to step in to quiet things down before, heaven forfend, it all leaked out. What a catastrophe it would have been had the American Sheeple actually found out what was going on. What a catastrophe if it all really leaked out now. And the lid has been on all this for three years. That’s really heroic behavior on the part of this cast of thugs. Gonzo knows too much. He has to be treated very carefully. If he goes at all he will go on his own terms.. No rules apply to this regime, and historic precedent won’t matter. Votes of no confidence won’t matter either. The king must be protected at all costs, and he will be.

  • I guess the people wetting their pants over Ashcroft’s Heroic Lie Down have never been seriously ill. Otherwise they would know Ashcroft just wanted EVERYONE to leave him the hell alone. He wasn’t thinking “No, I will not endanger the rights of my fellow Americans.” He was thinking: “Go away, I’m trying to sleep here!”

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