← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 9979 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-09-22
2003-09-22 22:49 | User Profile
[url]http://conservative.org/columnists/keene/030916dk.asp[/url]
[B]David A. Keene [/B] [B]Ashcroft shows shortcomings with 'victory'[/B] September 16, 2003
Attorney General John Ashcroft began his recent "victory" tour at the American Enterprise Institute where he disingenuously justified his campaign-like appearance as necessary, lest those lacking his unique dedication to the war against terrorism succeed in "repealing" the USA Patriot Act. He then took his show on the road, speaking primarily before closed meetings of law enforcement officials assembled to applaud and nod as he not only defended the vast investigative powers he and they have acquired since Sept. 11 but argued that more were needed.
Meanwhile, his spokespeople were hinting publicly that anyone who even dares question the need for such power or suspects that it might actually be abused by those to whom it is being entrusted are at the very least insufficiently committed to fighting terrorism and might, indeed, be "soft" on the whole question. Indeed, his people began charging that critics of the Patriot Act, ranging from the ACLU to the Eagle Forum, have been lying and misrepresenting the whole thing from the beginning in an effort to stir up fears about actual or potential government abuse of the rights of innocent U.S. citizens. One of my conservative brother's questions were dismissed by a Justice Department representative, who told him that he should just "trust the government to do the right thing."
I have always considered John Ashcroft a friend, and I certainly appreciate the difficulty of his current job, but like many of those who have supported him in the past, I find myself stunned not only by his failure, rhetoric aside, to understand the need to balance the demand for security with the need to safeguard individual freedom but with the way in which he is trying to consign anyone who questions anything the government does to the ranks of terrorist sympathizers. He knows better, and those he is now attacking have every right to resent the mischaracterization of their motives and integrity emanating from his office.
Many in the administration seem to believe that this helps President Bush who, rightly, continues to get high marks for his conduct of the war against terrorism, but they are missing the straws in the wind. The Patriot Act passed in the weeks following Sept. 11 because in times of crisis people want action and don't pay much attention to details. Many of those who voted for it did so without even reading it, and everyone in Congress knows that the recent Justice Department assertion that the act was seriously debated and examined for six weeks before passage is laughable nonsense.
Since then, many in Congress have had a chance to step back and ask whether the 342-page bill the administration cobbled together in those dark days might have gone too far. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) believes today that his vote for the bill was perhaps the worst he's ever cast, and dozens of others from both parties are suggesting that Congress revisit some of the provisions they might not have passed those provisions had they not been stampeded by an administration insisting that a vote against a bill they hadn't even had a chance to examine was a vote against bringing terrorists to justice.
It should be noted, however, that regardless of what Ashcroft claims, no one is urging repeal of the Patriot Act. Even the act's harshest critics acknowledge that the government needed new tools to deal with the unique threat posed by international terrorism and would do nothing to deny government those tools. However, they are now asking that it be reviewed and perhaps modified with an eye to protecting the traditional and constitutional rights of innocent Americans. Ashcroft's response to this has been to demand that the sunset provisions that would eventually force such a review be removed and that Congress expand rather than restrict the investigative powers "needed" to effectively fight terrorism.
Fortunately, Congress has been less receptive to the attorney general than the handpicked audiences he addressed during his tour. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) has introduced a bill in the Senate to reform the act, and the House recently voted 309-118 for a floor amendment offered by Idaho's Butch Otter restricting the utilization of what are known as "sneak and peek" warrants. One hundred thirteen of those votes came from Republicans, and, regardless of whether the amendment passes the Senate or survives a conference, represent a warning that neither Ashcroft nor the president can afford to ignore.
Americans demand both security and freedom and believe that we can have both.
The administration is tasked with protecting us but should be on notice now that Americans are simply unwilling to give up their rights to make that task easier just because Ashcroft's bureaucrats say we should trust them.
[I][B]David Keene[/B] is chairman of the American Conservative Union and a Washington-based government affairs consultant. [/I]
2003-09-22 23:58 | User Profile
Kminta,
[QUOTE]Attorney General John Ashcroft began his recent "victory" tour at the American Enterprise Institute where he disingenuously justified his campaign-like appearance as necessary, lest those lacking his unique dedication to the war against terrorism succeed in "repealing" the USA Patriot Act.[/QUOTE]
The fact that Ashcroft started here of all places ought to tell any halfway informed individual all he/she needs to know about this misnamed act. It it funny as hell to hear idiot neo-cons in the media attempt to dismiss anyone who objects to this abortion as a [B]"liberal" and "democrat,"[/B] when you consider someone of Keene's credentials. The same holds true of former Cong. Bob Barr, hardly a friend of the criminal and another outspoken critic.
2003-09-23 00:07 | User Profile
GOP Jews, Evangelicals, and those beholden to them get very worked up the Patriot Act. They think it is winning issue. Basically, they sound like they are working from the Himmler-Goering playbook. Probably, they spent too much time analyzing Nazi tactics in order to 'know the enemy,' and it wore off in a bad way. Oh well. Most people seem fairly worried about the Patriot Act, so neocon activity probably wont matter as much as one might think, long term.
2003-09-23 02:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE] It it funny as hell to hear idiot neo-cons in the media attempt to dismiss anyone who objects to this abortion as a [B]"liberal" and "democrat,"[/B] when you consider someone of Keene's credentials. The same holds true of former Cong. Bob Barr, hardly a friend of the criminal and another outspoken critic.[/QUOTE]
Very true. This piece, from today's WALL STREET JOURNAL, by neocon stalwart Dorothy Rabinowitz is a perfect example of such thinking:
DOROTHY RABINOWITZ'S MEDIA LOG A Demon for Our Times Why the left hates John Ashcroft.
Monday, September 22, 2003 12:01 a.m.
Frenzy mounts uncontrolled over John Ashcroft, now considered--in those quarters touched by the delirium--enemy No. 1 of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and all that Americans hold dear. What is the cause of these fevers? Is there a doctor in the house? We may exclude Dr. Howard Dean, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has already offered his findings, to wit: "John Ashcroft is not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy." Sen. John Kerry, once properly--and eloquently--infuriated over the campaign of cretinous slanders mounted against John McCain in the last Republican presidential primary, has in turn offered his views on the attorney general. During the Democrats' debate in Baltimore, candidate Kerry said he saw before him "people of every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is indeed John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here." Richard Gephardt, eyes similarly on the prize, has let America know which of our great national concerns he considered most pressing--a good thing to know about a candidate. The national priority looming largest in his mind is, Mr. Gephardt has let it be known, to fire John Ashcroft in "my first five seconds as president." On the subject of the attorney general, no candidate has waxed more passionate than John Edwards, who warned, "we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedoms, and our liberties." And further: John Ashcroft and this administration can "spin their wheels all they want about the Patriot Act. . . . They have rolled over our rights for the past two years," says Mr. Edwards, one of the most uncompromisingly staunch Senate supporters of the Patriot Bill when it was passed after September 11--a fact the candidate seems to have found little or no occasion to mention in the course of his current crusade. Also among those voting for the bill were Rep. Gephardt, and Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham.
It's hardly necessary by now to list all the charges and the alarms being raised about Mr. Ashcroft, by those portraying the attorney general as the menace to civil liberties that should haunt the dreams of all Americans who want to preserve our way of life. This is no exaggeration; the fever has spread wide, fed largely by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied sentinels of freedom, its signs clear in the ads calling on citizens to "Save Our Constitution," in emergency rallies led by the ACLU, and such groups as "Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow" and "The New York Bill of Rights Defense Committee." The attorney general has, declared the New York Civil Liberties Union, "led a massive assault on our most basic rights." Indeed, to hear the aforementioned groups, John Ashcroft is a greater threat to our national life and our freedoms than that posed by terrorists--a view that itself speaks volumes about the character and disposition of the Constitution-protectors up in arms over Mr. Ashcroft. Then there is the issue of the facts--a scarce commodity in the oceans of oratory now spilling forth about our threatened Bill of Rights, and about agents spying on Americans' reading habits. In none of the descriptions of the out-of-control attorney general, and accompanying suggestions of incipient fascism on the march, is there to be found any mention of the truth that the attorney general did not, of course, arrogate to himself the power to extend security measures: He went to the courts for permission. They were put in place only after scrutiny by judges. Likewise, current hair-tearing about secret investigations and library spies notwithstanding, it remains a fact that for decades now, in its pursuit of crimes like money-laundering, the government has been free to prohibit banks from informing clients they were under investigation--and has done so without any outcry from the ACLU about civil rights violations. The Patriot Act could be said to be imperfect in some areas, a dissident member of the ACLU recently informed me--but so dishonest was his organization's portrayal of it as a threat to our basic freedoms, he could hardly bring himself to join any argument against it. That ACLU dissidents harbor feelings of disgust at their leadership and its policies shouldn't come as news. For some 20 years now, control of the organization has rested securely in the hands of activists devoted to issues dear to the hearts of the left. No one was surprised when the ACLU of Southern California--home to the organization's most far-out activists--undertook the lawsuit to delay the state's recall vote. The ACLU was the first to charge, after Sept. 11, that the government's antiterrorist measures and detention of terror suspects threatened civil liberties. Even as workers struggled to pull bodies from the mountain of rubble in downtown Manhattan, the ACLU and like-minded allies had begun issuing warnings that government efforts to prevent more terrorist assaults posed greater dangers to the nation--would destroy our Constitution and the America we have always known--than the terrorists could possibly do. The arguments found instant acceptance, not surprisingly, among faculty ideologues on the campuses. Who can forget the instantly organized teach-ins, where speakers argued, even as the nation mourned nearly 3,000 dead, that the United States had received just deserts for its policies? Efforts to protect ourselves with rational means of defense--investigations and apprehension of likely suspects, increased security measures, profiling--all connected with the spirit of these arguments: We--not the terrorists so avid for our destruction--were the enemy that would cause the demise of our democracy. This was, and remains, claptrap of the rankest kind, which the great mass of sane Americans would never buy--and still, it cannot be ignored. It cannot be ignored, that is, that we are in a time never before seen in this country--a time produced in part by what remains of the politics and values of the 1960s, but only in part. For even in the '60s, we did not see what we do today--namely significant quarters of the culture, elite and popular, sympathetic to the views of those home and abroad most hostile to this nation. A time when talk of American "swagger" and "bullying" comes tripping from the tongue. For such times John Ashcroft was a target made to order. Devoutly religious, appointee of George Bush, he could scarcely have been a better fit for the bogeyman figure advanced as the greatest threat to our civil liberties--the perfect model to fire up the crowds at marches, and breast-beating festivals. Not for nothing do the Democratic presidential candidates out-do themselves denouncing the attorney general: they know, the candidates do, what has filtered down to their base, their main audience, after all. They all know, as John Kerry does, that he can say whatever he wants about John Ashcroft--that he views, as a nightmare, members of other races creeds and religions, or anything else the Democratic candidate finds convenient--and it will all be understood, a mark of political virtue.
Mr. Ashcroft's detractors were at no time more infuriated--at least recently--than when he undertook his journey to various states, to speak up in defense of the USA Patriot Act. Indeed, Janet Reno, former attorney general, was sufficiently exercised by Mr. Ashcroft's journeys to come forward to join the denunciations of his policies. Ms. Reno, whose devotion to civil liberties was best exemplified in 1993, when she ordered tanks in to assault the Branch Davidian compound in Waco--which exercise resulted in the deaths of 19 children and 57 adults--has not been heard from for a while. But it is worth remembering that attorney general's notions of due process in a time of emergency. A dangerous situation was becoming more dangerous, Ms. Reno would later explain--there had been word that children had been sexually abused. In went the tanks and the flammable gas canisters. As far as one can tell, the ACLU launched no protests. The 19 children, were, it could be argued, certainly saved from molestation. Mr. Ashcroft's efforts as attorney general have, as far as anyone knows, resulted in no such mass casualties. Still the hot-eyed demonstrators keep rolling out to shout their denunciations and wave placards saying "R.I.P. Civil Rights" and "Here Lies Your Freedom." Much has been invested in the demagoguery portraying John Ashcroft as the most serious threat to our liberties in memory: an investment that has enriched the ACLU's funding coffers, and delivered priceless publicity. No one should expect it to end anytime soon.