[+/-] Ashcroft is 0 for 5000 on terror convictions

On Sept. 2 a federal judge in Detroit threw out the only jury conviction the Justice Department has obtained on a terrorism charge since 9/11. With the collapse of that case, Ashcroft's record is one of zero terrorism convictions since 9/11.

Did Ashcroft hold a news conference in September when the case was dismissed? Nope. Did he offer any apologies to the defendants who had spent nearly three years in jail? Nope, that wouldn't be good for his boss' campaign, which rests on the "war on terrorism."

In America, as in Iraq, Bush's war is not going as well as he pretends. The President thinks he can win this war by "acting tough" and treating the rule of law and constitutional freedoms as optional. With enough fearmongering, that attitude may win him the election. But it will lose the war. Bush is playing right into al Qaeda's hands by further alienating those we most need on our side.

Until that reversal, the Detroit case had marked the only terrorist conviction obtained from the Justice Department's detention of more than 5,000 foreign nationals in anti-terrorism sweeps since 9/11. So Ashcroft's record is 0 for 5,000. When the attorney general was locking these men up in the immediate wake of the attacks, he held almost daily press conferences to announce how many "suspected terrorists" had been detained. No press conference has been forthcoming to announce that exactly none of them have turned out to be actual terrorists.

And what about Abu Ghraib, the scandal which has done untold damage worldwide to the legitimacy of the fight against terrorism?

[T]he military has still not charged any higher-ups in the Pentagon, and the administration has shown no inclination to appoint an independent commission to investigate. It prefers to leave the investigation to the Justice Department and the Pentagon, the two entities that drafted secret legal memos defending torture.

How do you spell "failure?" A-S-H-C-R-O-F-T

Perhaps the Bush cartel would be more successful against terrorism if they

1. Stopped wasting time trying to keep pop stars out of the country
2. Stopped wasting time trying to find out what Joe Passenger ate on his cross country flight, and
3. Stopped wasting time in Iraq and return to hunting Osama bin Laden.

Just a thought.