November 10, 2004

• maybe the is a God after all . . .
• Metafilter's got more information... dammit.
• Mel Carnahan for next Attorney General.
• It's official: "Let the Eagle Soar" is the worst song of all time. I'd rather eat shit and die than let that disaster out of its cage.
• I wish his departure would make a positive difference but it won't. They'll just replace him with someone who'll do exactly the same things but seem less crazy.
• sorry to post & run... I'll be back tomorrow.
• I worry that this only means Ashcroft will no longer be restrained by officia...lrestraints Not that he was anyway, but now he is out of the public eye and yet still has the White House's ear. This could be a very bad thing...
• This just in "Crowds outside the Attorney Generals Office were amazed as a drunken John Ashcroft unfurled a massive "Mission Accomplished" banner from the balcony.
• Doesn't Ashcroft's letter unequivocally express the opinion that Kerry's defeat now makes us secured from crime and terrorism? I mean, isn't that... y'know... a little presumptuous?
• Mel Carnahan for next Attorney General. A dead man could do no worse.
• Let's say good-bye... Let the eagle soar! Everybody!
• Actually, I'm kinda impressed by his vibrato.
• Hmm...I'm surprised he has a vibrato. But then he does seem kinda kinky.
• I think Ashcroft's voice is quite lovely. The vibrato is good (as mentioned), and he has a pretty effortless upper register from the sound of things. Not Met material, but it's a nice instrument regardless.
• Ah, that Mel Carnahan crack is the first reply on Mefi. I didn't look there first, honest. I'm a little deflated by Ashcroft leaving. He was so busy covering boobs on statues and dodging calico cats and such that he wasn't too effective as a puritan persecuter, at least not nearly as much as he was painted. Will we look back with nostalgia on Mr. Ashcroft's silliness?
• Will we look back with nostalgia on Mr. Ashcroft's silliness? Ah, those Patriot Act days were a total riot! You kids enjoy your government-mandated *censored*, now. Grandpa's off to Moral Reeducation and Soylent Harvesting Camp.
• "Gotta go with the corpse" "Oh Lady Justice...won't you be my wife?"
• Thing is, the Patriot Act wasn't totally his doing. It was produced quickly after 9/11, because it was a laundry list of things the FBI had wanted for some time. Clinton's record on privacy was pretty bad too. But I suppose no one remembers that any more.
• Hello Supreme Court! Goodbye civil liberties!
• I wonder if they'll find the Anthrax mailer now. Funny how the trail went cold when it was pointing at a millitary strain...
• I've thought for years that Ashcroft's main job was less effecting justice and more acting the fool to deflect press and opposition party attention away from his boss. Now that Bush has a second term, his job is pretty much done. Time to go back to Missourah and do some laurel-resting.
• Isn't he quitting because he's sick and in horrible pain or something?
• It was just gas. Those fava beans from the White House cafeteria are a felony assault on the GI tract.
• Safe from dirty, nasty titties! At last!
• Let this day be recognized as a national holiday!
• Were there any justice in the world, Ashcroft would suffer a lingering, painful death reasonably soon. He does not deserve to walk free.
• And they are already talking about Larry Thompson for the job. In case you don't recognise the name, he is the guy who likes outsourcing torture, and sent Maher Arar (a Canadian citizen, detained in transit in NY) to Syria for torturing. There's more on the Arar case at Obsidian Wings. Start here.
• Isn't he quitting because he's sick and in horrible pain or something? Only if there's a God.
• This Ashcroft, it vibratos? (That's it folks, nothin' to see here, we're all safe now... No more terror...)
• His parting shot, according to NPR this morning, is to seek a supreme court challenge to Oregon's assisted suicide law. Surely we expected something like that.
• And they are already talking about Larry Thompson for the job. Looks like it might be White House counsel Alberto Gonzales instead. From Yahoo News: "Gonzales' career has been linked with Bush for at least a decade, serving as general counsel when Bush was governor of Texas, and then as secretary of state and as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court. "Gonzales has been at the center of developing Bush's positions on balancing civil liberties with waging the war on terrorism — opening the White House counsel to the same line of criticism that has dogged Ashcroft. "For instance, Gonzales publicly defended the administration's policy — essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now being fought out in the lower courts — of detaining certain terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to lawyers or courts. "He also wrote a controversial February 2002 memo in which Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position drew fire from human rights groups, which said it helped led to the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. "Some conservatives also have quietly questioned Gonzales' credentials on core social issues. And he once was a partner in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden energy giant Enron."
• Sweet! So we get a torture endorsing apologist who suckled the teat of corrupt industry to replace our inneffective zealot who liked to break gag orders. I feel safer already!