Ashcroft before Comission
 

check your NPR affiliate

Al Queda has interest in "evil chemicals" and "evil biologicals"

Must be that new faith-based science we are hearing so much about

I was thinking the same thing. That boy is whacked.

He and Reno seem to be on opposite sides of the fence on this business of shared information. "General" Reno says the walls of separation between the FBI and CIA are not a problem and "General" Ashcroft says they are. Whether the walls were thin enough to hear through becomes the question. I wonder if the rules were just ignored in previous administrations or were the rules workable? Oh yes, Generalisimo Ashcroft would like more powers, but I guess we knew that about him already.

what i don't get is the fact that the same people who were screaming about the horrors of the patriot act allowing cia/dia/fbi to share information are the one's who are now screaming that they should have been doing exactly that before 9/11. i agree they should have been doing that, but that isn't how the laws were written at the time.

With the controls down, we'll get the worst of both worlds -- national intelligence resources will be used for ordinary investigations (bye-bye fourth amendment -- no longer are your phone calls to mom between you, your mother, and the NSA), but the damn terrorists will still get through, perhaps by communicating through SPAM or some such thing.

ok - i won't argue this point - but isn't this one of the big questions from the commission "why weren't the agencies collaborating?" and the answer is still - it was not legal until passage of the patriot act. and the american public would never have accepted the PA if we had not been attacked.

"Must be that new faith-based science we are hearing so much about"

Heh

I didn't get a chance to see him or to read a transcript of what he said, but the general view of some commission members was that he lied his ass off about some parts, omitted others, and generally was just a huge disappointment.

actually the funiest thing about asscroft.. oops.. I uh.. yeah that's what I meant.. is that in the last missouri election HE LOST TO A DEAD MAN! the people have spoken! and that whole business about spending what? 10.000 dollars to cover up lady justices breast?... I don't get that.. what's next will michelangelos' david be wearing speedos?

the guys a religious whack-job

Ahaha, I remember hearing about that dead man thing. There was an election in Missouri and I think one of the candidates died while all the campaigns were still going on and they just left his name on the ballot. The choices basically came down to "John Ashcroft... or dead man." And the people basically thought "Well shit, no offense John, but the dead guy scares me a whole lot less than you do."

Then-Sen. John Ashcroft was running for re-election against then-Gov. Mel Carnahan. Carnahan, his son and an aide were killed in a plane crash near St. Louis on October 16, 2000. Carnahan's name could not be removed from the ballot because it was too late, and he wound up winning by 1 percent. His wife, Jean, served in his place, but was defeated by former Rep. Jim Talent in a special election in 2002.