Posted on 07/23/2002 6:07:53 PM PDT by Pokey78
CONSERVATIVES TURN ON ASHCROFT
Tue Jul 23 2002 20:58:38 ET
Many religious conservatives who were instrumental in pressing President Bush to appoint John Ashcroft as attorney general -- now say they have become deeply troubled by his actions, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report in a blistering Page One spread on Wednesday.
"His religious base is now quite troubled by what he's done," Grover Norquist tells the TIMES's Neil Lewis.
MORE
Several Bush advisers have begun complaining that Ashcroft has projected himself too often and too forcefully. More significantly, they say privately that he seems to be overstating the evidence of terrorist threats, the paper claims.
Conservtives cite Ashcroft's anti-terrorist positions as enhancing the kind of government power that they instinctively oppose.
Norquist: "If there hadn't been this big government problem, Ashcroft would have been talked about as the Bush successor. Instead, the talk is that 'too bad we pushed for him."'
Ashcroft was also criticized by some in the administration for declaring early on that the case of John Walker Lindh was a major terrorist case, the paper reports. Some officials in the Justice Department believed that the attorney general made needlessly harsh public comments about Lindh. The case came to an abrupt end last week, when Lindh pleaded guilty to two felonies and the department dropped the most severe terrorism-related charges against him, treating him as a far less important figure than depicted by the attorney general.
Developing...
Yeah, and so was all the fuss over what amounted to a little oral sex between consenting adults in the Oval Office, or what amounted to a few pardons for nonviolent victims of the judicial system, or a few going-away gifts from admirers, or some campaign contributions from Asian-American businessmen....
AH,I see. You want them to call the local 911 number, who then calls her boss, who calls the local police chief who calls the Major who says screw it and has another drink at the topless bar.
Kaboom. Oops, too late.
Could we at least agree that:
1) Your "rap sheet" or whatever should be cleared if you aren't "guilty" of whetever the tip pertained to?
2) If you make a false report (I mean in anger, not an honest mistake. That could happen to anyone) that you should have to take your lumps for it?
You can't? I'm not surprised. It's not in there.
Isn't this the duty of every American citizen in a time of war?
I am SOOOOOOO glad that the Sheriff in O.C., CA didn't feel this way last week.
We're at war, sr. But, you're the same guy who thinks I can't stop a falling-down drunk from getting in his car and driving away.
You're clueless.
Excellent!
My nomination for post of the day. (#34)
You mistakenly posted to me. You need RJCogburn, so you and he can lick your wounds over Clinton.
What is that suppose to mean?
What you don't realize is every time Presidente Bush thinks he's strengthening the security of this nation with things like TIPS, he is actually weakening it and placing us in a very dangerous position. He is generating an environment in which radical elements will thrive. If these radical elements get out of hand, Bush is not a strong enough leader to correct the situation.
And the end result will be worse than anything we have now.
I think you're missing the point. Operation TIPS wasn't simply about getting people to report suspicious activity... it went too far. It was basically an attempt to use mailmen, repairmen, and deliverymen as a means of an endaround the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
Overall, I like Ashcroft, but Operation TIPS is a bad idea.
That's not what this article is about, though... it's about Grover Norquist.
I'm clueless? You are the one claiming that we are at war when we are not. We're not you know.Seriously, look it up.
Now I ask you again, please show me, where in the constitution, the federal government is granted the power to run a federal neighborhood watch program.
Why does Drudge do this?
Doesn't he realize yet that by posting anything puked out by the DNC through one of their main surrogates, the Gray Old Whore, he is tarnishing his own reputation?
Good blunt question. I'm always skeptical of these dim, indefinite, indistinct, murky, nebulous, obscure "many" who are quoted by someone trying to manipulate public opinion.
So they're out early with the first of many pre-emptive stikes against Ashcroft in order to make him the story not the crime within Citi and the Dem party.
Just like having pre-written funeral stories of famous people in-the-system there's no doubt they've got hit pieces like this ready made to counter the forthcoming bad newz.....
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