Let The Elephant Soar...Like it's Never Soared Before...

The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: After John Ashcroft: "Having just emerged from a campaign season in which President Bush constantly reminded the public that he was a war president in the never-ending fight against terrorism, it felt a little peculiar to hear John Ashcroft resign as attorney general with the announcement that 'the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.' Mr. Ashcroft, however, is yesterday's news. Now that he's leaving, we hope that Mr. Bush will take the opportunity to put the Justice Department back in the business of enforcing the laws evenhandedly and upholding Americans' constitutional rights.

Mr. Bush's swiftly chosen replacement, the White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, is not the highly polarizing figure Mr. Ashcroft is. Unfortunately, the news is not all good, because Mr. Gonzales has a long record of giving Mr. Bush bad legal advice. In Texas, when he was legal counsel to Governor Bush, Mr. Gonzales produced briefs on clemency appeals in death penalty cases that ignored evidence that some convicts were innocent or that they had gotten ineffective counsel. More recently, as White House counsel, he signed off on the ignoble memo explaining how to get away with torturing prisoners. He helped set up the unconstitutional system at Guant�namo Bay, and pronounced the Geneva Conventions a 'quaint' anachronism."