Time to Replace Ashcroft
Posted By John Moore on September 21, 2003
Fox News is reporting that Attorney General John Ashcroft is ordering all federal prosecutors to apply the strongest charges (in terms of sentencing) in all criminal cases..
If this is true, then Ashcroft has to go. This would be “justice” by bureaucracy, with no room for judgement or common sense. Sentences have ranges for a reason, and prosecutors have discretion to choose whether to charge with a greater or lesser offense for the same reason: so the punishment will best fit the crime.
Ashcroft has already hurt the fight against terror by failing to adequately defend the Patriot Act. While the opponents of the act have hurled lies and hysterical exaggerations against it, Ashcroft has not done nearly enough to show the other side. His tour around the country involves only speaking to the converted – law enforcement personnel – when he should be on talk shows defending himself in widely seen public fora. His visible persona has been too smug and not open to criticism. He apparently has no understanding of how many in the public feel, of the lies they have been told, and of the extreme tactics that his opponents are taking. Even the name of the act shows a political blindness – the left has long ago caused people to associate the word “patriot” with tyranny, and no amount of reasoning (much less the total lack of defense from Ashcroft) can change that.
This man has become a liability to the Bush administration and to the war on terror. The President needs to throw him out – ASAP!
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