Missouri's former U. S. Senator John Ashcroft was vilified by the liberal segment of the media for what was termed as his support for infringements on Americans' civil liberties during his tenure as U. S. attorney general, but an article in today's Washington Post indicates Ashcroft received a bum rap.
The Post investigation was prompted by last week's testimony of how Ashcroft rebuffed attempts by Bush aides to have Ashcroft, while he was in a hospital bed, approve an expansion of a surveillance program. Essentially, this is what the report uncovered:
According to former officials, it was not the only time that the former Missouri senator chosen for the Bush Cabinet in part for his ties to the Christian right would challenge the White House in private. In addition to rejecting to the most expansive version of the warrantless eavesdropping program, the officials said, Ashcroft also opposed holding detainees indefinitely at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without some form of due process. He fought to guarantee some rights for those to be tried by newly created military commissions. And he insisted that Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers, be prosecuted in a civilian court.
The article leads to a sobering conclusion: If John Ashcroft, often cited as an example of the right wing extremism during the opening years of President George W. Bush's administration is the voice of reason, that should make people more concerned than ever about the influence of Vice President Cheney.
8 comments:
Another possible conclusion - which should be equally sobering: Those portraying Ashcroft as a right wing extremist were lying to suit their agenda.
to tom: you truly couldn't expect RT to ever think of THAT possible conclusion. That would require him to remove his blinders a shade to the right. And also he might actually have think more broadly about something before slamming down his leftist condemnation.
And, in the end, it may be that neither conclusion is right.
Thank you for a good post, tom.
Dear Anonymous friends....
If you think Ashcroft was taken advantage of and thrown under the bus by the thugs in the White House, then why didn't he sing like a canary at the time. He could have put this bunch in their place had he came forth to the american public and told them his side.
The DC boys were upset their man didn't get elected Senator from Missouri and that he was taken down by a deceased governor. So they offered him this carrot job knowing they could manipulate him to their satisfaction.
He certainly kept his mouth shut and did not expose them for what they were, so in my book he just went along for the ride, knowing full well the american public was getting a good screwing....again.
Don't blame Randy for the situation that developed, Ashcroft let this play out the way it did, in fact he has never yet told from his own mouth what the White House bunch tried to do while he was in the hospital.
You guys like to shoot the messenger when your right wingers screw up and are exposed.
D Rust
Ah Durst, the voice of the rational left.
To begin with, we don’t even know that the story is even reported accurately, however, lets assume that it is.
First, I don’t see where the first two posters complained that “Ashcroft was taken advantage of and thrown under the bus by the thugs in the White House.” Rather, it seems to me that they were complaining that people on the left demonized Ashcroft based on personal bigotry rather then facts.
Second, I would theorize that Ashcroft didn’t “sing like a canary” for a couple of reasons: First, he resigned at the end of the first administration for health reasons, he wasn’t forced out. Second, people on the right have the ability to tolerate differences of opinion without flipping their lid (a trait you might attempt to emulate).
Certainly, there can be a difference of opinion as too how far one should go in times of war to balance security with liberty. Back in 1963 there was an Attorney General named Kennedy who thought stripping Americans of their citizenship without due process was a just response to draft dodging. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, thought this approach went too far. Nevertheless, the Court recognized that:
“while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact.” Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144 (1963)
Now, maybe Bobby Kennedy was a right-wing crackpot or maybe he honestly thought this law struck a reasonable balance between liberty and security. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe the later is true.
Perhaps, those of you on the left could try disagree with policies without demonizing the person, it would make for a nice change of pace.
Here's a likely example of "reporting"— not the truth, but spreading lies for a political purpose, or , as "tom" suggested, "lying to suit their agenda."
The groups who spread this story were thugs throwing the truth under a bus.
***
SEATTLE — A man who tried to position himself as a leader of the anti-war movement by claiming to have participated in war crimes while serving in Iraq is facing federal charges of falsifying his record.
Jesse Adam Macbeth, 23, formerly of Phoenix, garnered attention on
blogs and in some alternative media after he began claiming in 2005 to have been awarded a Purple Heart for his service, which he said included slaughtering innocents in a Fallujah mosque. His story was contradicted by his discharge form, showing that he was kicked out of the Army after six weeks at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2003 because of his “entry level performance and conduct.”
....
Organizations that opposed the war, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, posted videos or statements containing Macbeth’s claims on their Web sites. In one videotaped interview, a skinny, stuttering Macbeth, dressed in a camouflage jacket, described slaughtering hundreds of people in a mosque: “We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque,” he said.
Iraq Veterans Against the War and other organizations removed the claims after learning they were false.
“He approached us in early 2006, posing as a war veteran. He seemed very emotionally distressed about his experiences,” said Amadee Braxton, a spokeswoman for Iraq Veterans Against the War, based in Philadelphia.
Macbeth claimed in an application for benefits to have served from May 2001 to June 2004, to have been shot in Iraq and to have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, LaMont E. Stokes, an agent with the VA’s Office of the Inspector General, wrote in the charging papers. He also collected more than $10,400 in benefits to which he was not entitled, Stokes wrote.
Stokes said he interviewed Macbeth in a Tacoma jail, where he has been serving a sentence for fourth-degree assault, and that Macbeth admitted falsifying the documents because he was homeless and wanted to “sucker” anything he could out of the government.
Your posting is so long its not worth wasting the time to read. Believe what you want, there is no need argue or even discuss something with a ring winger. You going to Falwell's funeral?
Sorry, Anonymous 7:45, either you have a dangerously short attention span or you don't take time to read. Remember reading? It's a very good thing to do...and there are so many good things available to read...even a good old paperback Western is fun...you ought to give it a try...the book is almost always better than the movie or the television version.
It must be very sad to be a liberal if your bitterness is so extreme that it requires you to use a man’s death as a punch line to a banal post.
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