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COLUMN
SEVENTY-THREE, JULY 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
BY MOLLY IVANS
Subject:
FW: Miz Molly: But he's our wacko
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 21:43:06 -0700
From: "venire" venire@znet.com
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
From
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=13230
But
he's our wacko
Molly
Ivins
4/30/02
AUSTIN,
Texas -- Sometimes I forget how truly simpleminded the Bushies can be. The
front-page of The New York Times reports, "The Bush administration seems to
accept and even relish [Attorney General] Ashcroft's role as lightning rod on
difficult criminal
Since
the attorney general has so amply demonstrated his clueless incompetence, it may
seem difficult to plumb why it should be so. But it is precisely, you see,
because liberals consider John Ashcroft a dangerous nincompoop that the
administration thinks he's doing a good job. They really are that simple.
In
the Texas Legislature, the press occasionally gives the If-He-Votes-Yes,
I-Vote-No Award for some egregious example of this particular strain of
non-thinking. Any halfway smart politician loves to have another pol in this
position. That's when you introduce a resolution in favor of Motherhood just to
watch the other guy vote against it.
It
takes no great detective to see the pattern here. Before Sept. 11, Bush's entire
foreign policy consisted of being Not Clinton. If Clinton was for something,
Bush was against it, and vice versa. This did not, you may have noticed, lead to
an effective foreign policy.
Likewise,
most people had difficulty understanding why the administration was so set on
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when it didn't make any sense.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 3.2 billion barrels of economically
recoverable oil, which would at most reduce our foreign dependence by a couple
of percentage points. We can save twice that with a tiny improvement in fuel
mileage, which the Bushies opposed. It's just dumb to drill there, and the
enviros were in a snit about it.
Precisely.
It was because the enviros were in a total snit that the Bushies felt they were
doing the right thing. Unfortunately, this is 4-year-old thinking.
Because
John Ashcroft has become a bugbear for liberals, the Bushies assume he must be
doing something right. Not necessarily.
As
David Cole reports in The Nation, "To date, despite the thousands of Arab
and Muslim immigrants arrested, searched, profiled and questioned, Ashcroft has
charged only a single person " Zacarias Moussaoui -- with any involvement in
the attacks of Sept. 11. And he was arrested before the attacks occurred. Such
broad-brush tactics are unlikely to succeed, for they give notice to potential
targets, allowing them to evade detection while alienating the very communities
we must work with to identify potential threats who may be living among
them."
Ashcroft
is still "detaining" -- such a nice euphemism -- - hundreds of
non-citizens on immigration charges, even though many of those charges have been
resolved. Under Ashcroft's orders, they are being tried in secret proceedings
closed to all outside observers.
U.S.
District Judge Nancy Edmunds has declared the closed proceedings
unconstitutional, and Superior Court Judge Arthur D'Italia of New Jersey,
calling the secret arrests "odious to a democracy," has ordered the
INS to release the names of those detained.
Ashcroft's
prosecution of Lynne Stewart, the New York lawyer who has bravely defended some
terribly unpopular clients, is a mystery. She is not charged with furthering any
illegal or violent activity. Ashcroft has also made prosecution of Massaoui more
difficult by insisting on the death penalty. We knew in advance that meant
France would not cooperate by releasing information that could lead to the death
penalty. It's all very well to sit around and gritch about the
Then
we have this ludicrous situation at Gitmo, where we now say we may keep these
people locked up even if they are acquitted of whatever charges are finally
leveled against them. A permanent policy of imprisonment without conviction or
even trial -- that's worse than stupid, it's horrible.
The administration has already backed down from its original position and will now require public trials, unanimous votes for the death penalty and some review. But they insist they can put you in a dungeon forever and they never have to say why. It's like the old French lettre de cachet that used to figure as plot device in potboilers like "The Count of Monte Cristo." One can only conclude the problem is the administration has no idea what to do with these prisoners. ##
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