I am sure not everyone is a big fan of C-Span but trust me some programs are classic. I thorowly enjoyed the senate hearing of Mr. Ashcroft, not everyday you see high tempers in so many old people! I am sure the medics were standing outside if one of them had a heart attack.
Here is a pearl from Ashcroft: “You know I condemn torture. I don’t think it’s productive, let alone justified.”
Re: Ashcroft & Senate Judiciary Committee
True…
I think Joe Biden was also funny…Hard to figure out if he was smiling or Angry
I caught Biden’s sound-bite on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. It was hilarious, the way he would smile and frown at the same time. The guy is a classic. Also the Senator who questioned Ashcroft “What (the heck) are you invoking anyway???”
I thought Biden was baring his teeth! Remind me not to vote for him for President if he ever runs, looked a wee bit unstable....
Ashcroft is an ahole. Someone needs to send him to Abu Ghraiba nd have that toothless idiot female private..use tweezers on his privates.
A good summary of it:
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I am not going to reveal discussions – whether I’ve had them or not had them with the president. He asked me to deal with him as a matter of confidence. I have not invoked the executive privilege today. I have explained to you why I’m not turning over the documents.
SEN. KENNEDY: Well, what are you invoking then?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: I have not invoked anything. I have just explained to you why I am not turning over the documents.
Ashcroft chased his tail this way throughout the hearing, insisting that it “is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from its attorney general that is confidential” (the very definition of an executive privilege claim), but then stammering that “if I did say that I was exerting executive privilege, I don’t believe I said that, and I didn’t intend to say I was exerting the privilege.”
But one Senator is going to put a stop to this foolishness. That principled champion of sunshine? None other than Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft. From May 13, 1998:
Part and parcel of the President’s abuse of executive privilege is his unwillingness to acknowledge the mere fact that he has asserted the privilege. Indeed, the President’s lawyers recently have attacked the Independent Counsel’s office for acknowledging the Court’s entirely predictable rejection of the President’s assertion of executive privilege. Apparently, the President wants to be able to assert the privilege and have a court rule on it, all without the knowledge of Congress or the American people.
The Executive Accountability Act of 1998 addresses the problem of the covert use of executive privilege through the simple expedient of requiring full disclosure. …
Ashcroft’s worry as a Senator? “[C]ongressional inquiries will be stymied by similar claims of executive privilege.” Ashcroft’s argument as Attorney General? “[P]rivate advice that the president gets from his Attorney General doesn’t have to be a part of the debate.”