Academic

RETHINKING JOHN ASHCROFT: Never mind that many of Ashcroft?s worst alleged sins are now pretty ?

By Glenn Reynolds

RETHINKING JOHN ASHCROFT:

Never mind that many of Ashcroft’s worst alleged sins are now pretty much Obama-Pelosi policies. But the Napolitano-Ashcroft comparison is telling.

Ashcroft was demonized for suggesting that Americans be on the lookout for terrorists. One of Napolitano’s main talking points these days is the need for vigilance from the public. Heck she claimed the “system worked” because a flying Dutchman took out the “alleged” terrorist.

Ashcroft was demonized because he allegedly was turning America into a police state where political enemies were targeted (remember that’s why Naomi Wolfe had a years-long mental breakdown). Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.

Ashcroft was mocked as a provincial hick who didn’t know much. Napolitano ? who runs our immigration service and was governor of a border state ? thinks it’s not a crime to illegally cross the border and insists that the 9/11 hijackers came from Canada.

John Ashcroft was a dangerous ideologue because he believed the war on terror is real. But Janet Napolitano isn’t a dangerous ideologue for believing the war on terror isn’t real?

What sounds more ideologically blinkered after 9/11?

Also, Ashcroft was competent. Holder and Napolitano, not so much.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on December 28, 2009 (boomark / email).