[Infowarrior] - Ashcroft Nostalgia

[Richard Forno]

Ashcroft Nostalgia
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/25/AR2006072501
308_pf.html
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, July 26, 2006; A17

Alberto Gonzales is achieving something remarkable, even miraculous, as
attorney general: He is making John Ashcroft look good.

I was no fan of President Bush's first attorney general, who may be best
remembered for holding prayer breakfasts with department brass, hiding the
bare-breasted statue in the Great Hall of Justice behind an $8,000 set of
drapes, and warning darkly that those who differed with administration
policy were giving aid to terrorists.

But as I watched Gonzales testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee last
week, it struck me: In terms of competence (the skill with which he handles
the job) and character (willingness to stand up to the president), Gonzales
is enough to make you yearn for the good old Ashcroft days.

Gonzales is an amiable man, not nearly so polarizing or ideological as his
predecessor. If you were given the old desert-island choice between the two,
he would be the better option -- more likely to share the rainwater, less
likely to make you listen to him sing. (If you've ever heard Ashcroft's "Let
the Eagle Soar," you know what I mean.)

Where Ashcroft was hard-edged and combative, Gonzales is pleasant and
seemingly imperturbable. He's always reminded me a bit of the Pillsbury
doughboy: No matter how hard he's poked, he springs back, smiling.

At the start of last week's hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), sounding like an exasperated high school English
teacher, chastised Gonzales for failing to turn in his prepared statement on
time. The attorney general sat silent, then calmly delivered the tardy
testimony.

The next three hours and 40 minutes illustrated just about everything that
is wrong with Gonzales's Justice.

There is no polite way to put this: Gonzales doesn't seem to have an
adequate grasp of what's happening in his own department or much influence
in setting administration policy.

Asked about House-passed legislation that would bar Justice from enforcing a
year-old law requiring trigger locks on newly sold handguns, Gonzales said
he was "not aware of" the dispute. Asked about his department's prosecutions
of corrupt Border Patrol agents (described in a front-page story in this
newspaper), Gonzales said he would "have to get back to you."

And when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) inquired whether the
administration supported reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act as passed
by the House, Gonzales didn't seem empowered to give him a straight answer
-- though the Judiciary Committee was set to take up the measure that
afternoon. "I don't know if I'm in a position to state that as an
administration we're going to support that," Gonzales said.

Gonzales as witness is a maddening exercise in jello-nailing. "I'm going to
move on and accept your non-answer, because I don't think I'm going to get
anything more on that subject, and perhaps nothing more on the next
subject," Specter told Gonzales after a fruitless line of questioning about
whether Justice was -- as the attorney general had said in May --
considering prosecuting journalists for publishing leaks.

Specter's bleak prediction proved accurate. When he asked Gonzales about the
attorney general's previous assurance that the National Security Agency's
electronic surveillance was the only program not subject to judicial
authorization, this illuminating exchange ensued.

Gonzales: "I'm not sure that those are the words that I used, Mr. Chairman."

Specter: "Well, the substance of the words you used."

Gonzales: "Those are the substance of the words I used, but those are not
the exact words that I used."

At which point Specter gave up and changed topics.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) didn't fare any better on military tribunals.
Leahy asked whether Congress should simply ratify the existing system, as an
assistant attorney general had urged the previous week.

Gonzales: "That would certainly be one alternative that Congress could
consider, Senator Leahy."

Leahy, trying again: "Is that the administration's position, yes or no?"

Gonzales: "I don't believe the administration has a position as to where
Congress should begin its deliberations."

Well, that was informative.

The big news of the hearing -- that the president had in effect killed an
internal Justice investigation into the domestic spying program by refusing
to grant the necessary security clearances to department lawyers --
underscores the most disturbing aspect of Gonzales's tenure: his lack of
independence from the president. If Gonzales disagreed with this move -- a
bad call and an even worse precedent -- he offered no hint of it at the
hearing.

This is not a surprise -- after all, Gonzales's entire public career is
entwined with that of George W. Bush -- but it is a disappointment. Ashcroft
at least clashed with the White House over detainee policy (he fought
internally to give citizens detained as enemy combatants access to counsel)
and warrantless surveillance (he refused when Gonzales came to his hospital
room asking that he sign papers extending the program).

To his credit, Gonzales did resist -- he supposedly threatened to quit --
when the president, pummeled by congressional Republicans over the search of
a Democratic congressman's office, considered ordering Justice to return the
documents. But Attorney General Gonzales doesn't seem to have any less zeal
for unbridled presidential power -- or any less willingness to make
outlandish arguments on its behalf -- than did White House Counsel Gonzales.

Which is precisely why he shouldn't be there in the first place -- and why I
am experiencing intermittent twinges of a most unexpected emotion: Ashcroft
nostalgia.

marcusr at washpost.com