John Ashcroft, civil libertarian?

By Nancy Jane Moore

John Ashcroft apparently took a stand to defend us from the Bush administration's overreaching assault on our civil liberties -- and he did it from intensive care.

This is the juicy story du jour: The Department of Justice refuses to sign off on the legality of Bush's domestic spying program; Alberto Gonzales (then White House counsel) and Andy Card (then chief of staff) rush over to the hospital to get a very sick Ashcroft to change his mind; and stalwart Deputy AG James Comey stands in their way.

You can get the details anywhere you look. The New York Times has a wrap up story. Dahlia Lithwick is suitably sarcastic on Slate.com. But for my money, the best commentary is on Balkinization, where Marty Lederman has posted commentary and a section of the testimony addressing whether the president acted illegally, plus Jack Balkin compares the current situation to things Nixon said and did.

Has it occurred to anyone else that John Ashcroft is an unlikely hero in these proceedings? After all, we're talking about the religious fundamentalist who brought his religion into his workplace, the guy who proposed the TIPS program encouraging us all to spy on our neighbors, the man who put drapes in front of a partially nude statue called The Spirit of Justice. (The picture above shows Ashcroft with the statue pre-drapes.)

Back in 2001 when Ashcroft was nominated for Attorney General, I was very angry that the Democrats didn't put up a real battle to block him. Ashcroft was known for his extreme views -- his nomination exemplified Bush's arrogant intent to run the country his way, despite the fact that he'd just squeaked into office by one vote (on the Supreme Court).

But the actions of the current crop of Bushies makes me nostalgic for Ashcroft. And he clearly did have one bout of integrity as Attorney General. So did several other people at Justice, apparently, and even FBI Director Robert Mueller. As I read the news, they banded together, threatened to resign, and eventually came up with a domestic surveillance program that was slightly less bad -- at least, it met some minimal standard of legality that satisfied the lawyers at Justice.

Before we get all sentimental about Ashcroft though, I've got a question for all of those former officials who are coming out of the woodwork these days, talking about the shenanigans of the Bushies: Why didn't you resign back then? And not just resign -- most of them left eventually -- but resign in protest. It's clear from the testimony that we're hearing now that you knew the country was in trouble. You may have won a tiny battle here and there by staying on the inside, but you lost the war: Bush and his cronies have run roughshod over our rights and left our country seriously weakened, not to mention hated throughout the world.

Bush couldn't have done it without all the people who went along even when they knew he was going too far. The survival of democracy depends in part on people taking principled stands. Instead, most people who knew what Bush was really up to gave him a free ride.

You people who just went along and left quietly if you left at all: I hope you have nightmares every night. Unfortunately, the rest of us have nightmares every day.

Bush & Alberto Gonzales: Undermining elections & the Kansas connection

By Diane Silver

Like the Energizer Bunny, the U.S. Attorney scandal keeps going and going. Whether you're a conservative or a liberal, I suspect, it also keeps getting more and more horrifying.

If you're a Bushie, the sight of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in front of Congress probably didn't brighten your day, no matter what the White House claims. The New York Times editorializes this morning:

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

Meanwhile, McClatchy Newspapers has uncovered a Bushie campaign to limit voter turnout in what appears to be a bold attempt to undermine elections in favor of the GOP.

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

...

Questions about the administration's campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians.

The push for Voter ID laws, like the one in Kansas, is also part of this.

Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.

"As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens," he said.

The Kansas Connection

The Kansas bill, which would require voters to bring identification to polling places, was narrowly defeated in the House during the regular session. However, it could come up again for a vote in the wrap-up session, which starts on Wednesday.

This bill is up for consideration despite the fact that, as the Lawrence Journal-World reports:

Supporters conceded they had no evidence of illegal immigrants trying to vote in Kansas, or other forms of voter fraud.

Scroll down to find the Voter ID section in this Journal-World capitol briefing.

So here we sit, far from Washington, and it seems clear: Kansas is caught in a nationwide GOP effort to repress voting by minorities and the poor.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration claims to be exporting democracy to the rest of the world. How can they possibly do that when they don't seem to believe in democracy at home?