"to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this:

[Douglas Carpenter]

your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil."

--- ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT -

November 06, 2001

[Scootaloo]

1. Very Goebbels.

Ashcroft was one creepy asshole.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. There are some people who have no problem with that

And that's pretty creepy itself

[frylock]

12. if AG holder made that comment, many here would stand and applaud.

[TheMadMonk]

3. So are YOU saying, people never had what they think...

...has been lost, or that's what he said?

[Violet_Crumble]

5. I think Douglas is saying the same sentiment is emerging lately n/t

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. that would be correct

[Romulus Quirinus]

10. It would be fun to set up one of those "Guess who made the quote" games with

things like this. Results could be hilarious!

[TheMadMonk]

7. Where? Apologists? The adminstration which promissed change?

Nationalists? In general amongst those who have given up and just want to be left alone to watch their "Reality TV?" and not be bothered with shit they can't change and might cost them if they put up a ruckus?

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Quite apropos... n/t

[Fumesucker]

8. "Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do." -Ari Fleischer, govt spokesman, 2001

[MADem]

9. Ashcroft was an opponent of domestic surveillance--funny how people can trash the guy when

the One Great Thing that he did (and I am not counting the comedy gift that keeps on giving, "Let The Eagle Soar&quot was in consonance with privacy issues.

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it, I fear:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html

White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.

In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.

The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.

"I was angry," Comey testified. "I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."...The warrantless eavesdropping program was approved by Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It allowed the NSA to monitor e-mails and telephone calls between the United States and overseas if one party was believed linked to terrorist groups. The program was revealed in late 2005; Gonzales announced in January that it had been replaced with an effort that would be supervised by a secret intelligence court.

More at the link. It's one of the first Big Lessons in 21st Century American History.

[randome]

13. Human beings are rarely as consistent as we want them to be, are they?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[MADem]

14. Certainly not, indeed. This guy was all wet on choice, and a lot of "Biblically-charged" stuff--as a

prominent example, he was a dumbass on the position of equality, but on warrantless wiretapping, he had the right idea.

[Octafish]

11. ''People have to watch what they say and watch what they do.'' -- Fleshy Liar

From 12 long slog years ago:

In Patriotic Time, Dissent Is Muted

Then we got the USA PATRIOT Act to help us, uh, catch, uh, small time drug dealers. We ain't got no banksters, traitors or terrorists, yet, but we're working on it. Heh heh heh.