Chickenshit: Thinking of that Kerry speech last week, in which he noted the diversity of his audience and said he saw

people from every background, every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is, indeed, John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here.

Did he just call Ashcroft a bigot? A segregationist? I doubt there are enough spine-donors in the world to give Kerry the backbone he'd need to say that directly to Ashcroft, his former Senate colleague. That makes him a chickenshit, in my book. The more I think about this, the more I think that Kerry is simply a dangerous person. Is he really that desperate to be president, that scared by Howard Dean, that he has to call the AG a racist, a crypto-segregationist?

One other point in defense of John Ashcroft: It may be true that Ashcroft thinks that people he believes to be threats to America should have their library records subpoenaed. Does anybody recall, though, what previous AGs' policies were? That we send a paramilitary FBI force to a private home to assassinate that person, his family, his friends, and his pets. William Barr presided as AG at the time of Ruby Ridge. Janet Reno presided over the cover-up, the destruction of evidence, the defense in court (at taxpayer expense) of the practice of snipers killing U.S. citizens, and the protection of (confessed) guilty parties from administrative penalty.

Why doesn't Kerry tell us why he voted to confirm both of those AGs, but somehow that facist Ashcroft sticks in his throat so badly? All I can guess is that Kerry must think it fine for federal officers to shoot unarmed American citizens on their own property, just as long as those agents don't look at their library records, goddammit!