In Brief: If Ashcroft Was Against It...:
The Rude Pundit has about as much love for John Ashcroft as he does for rotting cat corpses. The insane Ashcroft loved him some end runs around the Constitution for the sake of mad terrorist hunts, using confidentiality and exercise of executive power to titty-fuck the statue of Justice, thrusting away at those bodacious ta-tas for detentions and secret trials and surveillance of groups deemed in any way associated with "terrorism," telling those who would dare suggest that this was an encroachment on liberties, "Your tactics aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies." Yeah, man, motherfucker used the burnt limbs of 9/11 victims to bludgeon anyone who would stand in his way.

Yet he wouldn't approve the domestic surveillance program, as the White House wanted and that the NSA was already engaged in. As Greg Palast has said, how fucked are we that John Ashcroft actually thought some "tool" for "fighting terrorists" went too far? How goddamn frightening must that program really be for Ashcroft and good toady James Comey to have their stomachs churn? Christ, there must be microchips in toilet paper so that when you wipe your ass, it gets inserted in your bowels so the government can track your every move.

When Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card invaded Ashcroft's hospital room on March 10, 2004 to get him to sign off on renewing the NSA program, the Attorney General was recovering from having his gall bladder removed (feel free to insert gall bladder right-to-life joke here). The deadline for renewal was March 11. Comey had to confront Gonzales and Card, and, with one less organ, Ashcroft told them to fuck off. And, as we now know, the end result was that Bush got his program, with the shiny Justice Department approval, after the Madrid bombings had fortuitously occurred.

While Bush's boys were tryin' to get nearly dead Uncle Johnny to change his will, in Iraq, in the three days of this ordeal, Richard S. Gottfried was blown up. Edward W. Brabazon shot himself. Bert Hoyer was blown up, as were Joe Dunigan and Christopher Hill. There's no amount of spying on Americans that could have saved them.