My, my, my.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans resigned Tuesday, the first members of President Bush's Cabinet to leave as he headed from re-election into his second term.
Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."
It has? How? When? Where? Why didn't we notice? There's still crime in the streets of every hamlet, town and city in the nation. Given the drumbeat of recent revelations about problems with the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies, it's clear that we're still subject to terrorist attacks. About the only thing that is clear is that, given the types of laws this administration has promulgated and plans to advance, we have become a version of 1970s Argentina, with our own Disappeared, with the government asserting that it can arrest and hold American citizens with no showing of proof or evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever, with extraordinary rendition so that others can do our torturing for us. The only thing that Justice has achieved on Ashcroft's watch is to make Americans less safe from their own damned and damnable government.
Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.
Dear god. What have we done to deserve Alberto Gonzales to have any authority over anyone in this country, ever?
Just in case your memories need refreshing, it was Gonzales who penned those very charming legal opinions essentially opting the US out of the Geneva Conventions, making us a legal pariah internationally and putting our soldiers at even more risk than they already are. Those legal opinions that led the Pentagon to somehow forget to tell its soldiers in the field that torture was perhaps not something they should be doing, thus leading in part to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. One suspects -- just suspects -- that he may be in large part responsible for the administration's charming new position that outsourcing torture is really fine and dandy.
And this person could possibly be in charge of the Justice department, with the actual authority to arrest and charge people. (I've also heard that, should Rehnquist resign, he may be on the short list for a new Supreme Court justice, with Scalia likely being made Chief Justice, with the ability to assign opinions and to some extent set the agenda. Either way, surely we have not been evil enough to deserve what Mr Gonzales will do to us.)
Posted by iain at November 09, 2004 05:50 PM
