Ashcroft Resigns

[int]

Good Riddance.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=2&u=/usatoday/20041110/ts_usatoday/ashcroftevansresign

Bush nominates this guy:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/10/bush.cabinet/index.html

Never heard of him, so I can't make fun of him yet. :mellow:

[InsurgentAlpha]

Meh, more trash of course...


It is the fifth time Mr Bush has appointed Mr Gonzales to a senior job in his gift, the first three during his time as Texas Governor. “My confidence in Al was high to begin with. It has only grown in time.”

But his nomination places Mr Bush on collision course with the Senate, which must approve Mr Gonzales’s appointment, and risks re-opening many of the most controversial episodes of the first Bush term, including the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp. Mr Gonzales has been at the heart of the Bush Administration’s legal response to 9/11, including the planned use of secret military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo.
In one memo to Mr Bush, Mr Gonzales said the realities of the War on Terror superceded the “quaint” demands of the Geneva Convention. Republicans hold an effective 55-45 majority in the Senate and Mr Gonzales’s eventual appointment is not necessarily in doubt. But he faces a grilling as tough as the four-day showdown Mr Ashcroft suffered at the hands of senators before he was approved four years ago.

Most at issue is a January 2002 memo written by Mr Gonzales to Mr Bush in which he argued that Mr Bush could waive the protections of anti-torture laws and international treaties when it came to Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters.

One factor, Mr Gonzales noted, was the ability of US commanders to extract intelligence from prisoners. Another was Mr Bush’s “complete authority over the conduct of war”. “In my judgment this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitiation on questioning of enemy prisoners.” He added that the War on Terror “renders quaint” provisions such as supplying prisoners with “commissary privileges or athletic uniforms”. When the memo emerged last June, critics said Mr Gonzales’s linking of detention and the swift extraction of intelligence led the military to believe they had legal cover for the aggressive questioning of prisoners. Mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan led to the sadism and torture of Abu Ghraib, they said.

Mr Gonzales wrote: “Our position would likely provoke widespread condemnation among our allies and in some domestic quarters” and “could undermine US military culture, which emphasises maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat”.

The White House said that the memo related to al-Qaeda and the Taleban. It denied that there was a link to Abu Ghraib.

Mr Gonzales has also publicly argued the case for detaining terror suspects indefinitely and without access to a lawyer.

The Supreme Court has since rejected the Administration’s arguments, ruling that the US could not hold the 550 Guantanamo detainees incommunicado, and that they had to make the case for their detention before US civil courts.

Senate Democrats will be sure to rake over every aspect of his post 9/11 legal advice during his confirmation hearings. Mr Gonzales was once a partner in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden energy giant Enron.

[crule81]

Even though I generally vote Republican, Ashcroft is a loser. First, he lost an election to a dead guy. Then he wanted the boobs on the justice statue covered. He's a bit too religious right for me.

[InsurgentAlpha]

He wanted the boobs covered? I didn't know that... that is lame and makes me think he is insecure with his sexuality or something lol. Fundies of any order suck.

[crule81]

I guess the story was that during his press conferences, the boobs were right behind his head. It's difficult to preach family values and morality with bare hooters in the background.
I think many, if not most, people on the religious right are insecure about their sexuality - perhaps the guilt from the "sinful" thoughts about sex that lurk in the back of their heads make them every more holier than thou on the outside.

[Claverhouse]

I guess the story was that during his press conferences, the boobs were right behind his head. It's difficult to preach family values and morality with bare hooters in the background.

This has never been a difficulty for French politicians.



Claverhouse :ph34r:

[SheepDog]

Ashcroft is a big teddy bear. I'm gonna miss all that love that he showed our country.

[Chill]

Ugh. You know, I've been quite the opposite of a fan of Ashcroft. So I'm glad to see go, but they dug up this guy! I'm just waiting for the next 4 years to be done quick, and painlessly (hey one can hope). I'm tired of this wannabe fascist government.

[Groty]

Ashcroft is a big teddy bear. I'm gonna miss all that love that he showed our country.

He'll probably get his own TV show on CBN. Or, even worse, FoxNews. I can see it now...

"Day Side Live with Linda Vester and John Ashcroft"

[mgb]

Ashcroft is a big teddy bear. I'm gonna miss all that love that he showed our country.

He'll probably get his own TV show on CBN. Or, even worse, FoxNews. I can see it now...

"Day Side Live with Linda Vester and John Ashcroft"

I don't know if he'll want to pass up the opportunity to kick start his singing career.

Ashcroft for Idol!!!

haa haa

[int]

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=246536

[Network Alchemy]

aschroft lost to the dead politicians wife