Making Light :: Ashcroft profiled :: comments

Ashcroft profiled

It was improper of Mike Harris to post the entire text of the new Vanity Fair profile of John Ashcroft...

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #1 from Lis

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 19:58:27 -0500

Wow, it appears that abuse of libraries and librarians runs in the family!

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Posted February 23, 2004 7:58 PM by Lis

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #2 from --kip

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:11:12 -0500

"..it was a dinner gathering of lawyers, waited on (as is customary in the Missouri governor�s mansion) by local prisoners who had earned the privilege..."

"'The waiters, who were all African-American, had to have heard.'"

Dinesh D'Souza can kiss my ass. To quote Atrios.

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Posted February 23, 2004 8:11 PM by --kip

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #3 from Epacris

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:14:00 -0500

"..it was a dinner gathering ... waited on (as is customary in the Missouri governor�s mansion) by local prisoners who had earned the privilege..."
You don't feel a stiletto go in, the injury penetrates your awareness some time later. Do you think they have foodtasters at the mansion?

Things like that -- even not closely resembling it, but the inner idea -- always bring a whiff of that scene near the start of Frank Herbert's Dune where the newly arrived Atreides discover the customs attending the former Harkonnen governor's dinners & change them.
Despite faults, there is a lot of good in those books (have only read first 3), some of it only coming clearer with time (tho' I can be slow) which to me is a mark of quality.

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Posted February 23, 2004 9:14 PM by Epacris

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #4 from Kate Nepveu

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:35:07 -0500

waited on (as is customary in the Missouri governor's mansion) by local prisoners who had earned the privilege

Somehow this seems like the most bizarrely appalling thing in the quotation. And that's saying something.

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Posted February 23, 2004 9:35 PM by Kate Nepveu

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #5 from Paula Helm Murray

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:50:43 -0500

Y'all, I still apologize we didn't vote him in as governor, we voted for the dead guy (Mel Carnahan) because we already KNEW what a jackass he was....

Paula

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Posted February 23, 2004 10:50 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #6 from Paula Helm Murray

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:53:01 -0500

Oops that's voting him in as one of our Senators. Sorry! He's still a jackass.

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Posted February 23, 2004 10:53 PM by Paula Helm Murray

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #7 from Marrije

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 04:59:04 -0500

I'm reading "Catch 22" at the moment, and the prayer bit about Ashcroft is straight out of that book! Eerie. It's an eerily relevant book today anyway.

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Posted February 24, 2004 4:59 AM by Marrije

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #8 from Adam Lipkin

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:02:51 -0500

The rest of the profile is pretty appalling also (and just strange in some places. I mean, really, what's wrong with calico cats?). And then what does it say about W., who thought Ashcroft was a good choice for the post?

Also, off-topic, but in MSIE6, the text stops at the bottom of the ads (but if you view the source code it's all there). I'm doing this from Netscape.

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Posted February 24, 2004 10:02 AM by Adam Lipkin

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #9 from Frank

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:51:48 -0500

An OT thanks for reminding people about copyrights.

And an OT to Adam: it also looks fine in Opera, which you should try...

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Posted February 24, 2004 10:51 AM by Frank

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #10 from LNHammer

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:57:34 -0500

Huh — in IE6 (SP1, running on Win2K) it looks fine to me.

---L.

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Posted February 24, 2004 11:57 AM by LNHammer

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #11 from Adam Lipkin

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:19:52 -0500

Frank-- I use Opera a lot (right now, for example), but I tried Netscape first because Opera still has trouble sometimes with nontraditional html. But it's working fine. IE still truncates though. Maybe I have a setting wrong all of a sudden. Ah well.

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Posted February 24, 2004 3:19 PM by Adam Lipkin

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #12 from mattH

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:04:45 -0500

Ashcroft sinks behind his drape covered statue and you don't hear about him for a while, and you forget just how anachronistic his ideals about the world are. That someone like this is running our Justice department makes me wonder what things will be found after he leaves; what he's decided isn't worth prosecuting or even commneting on. Scary man.

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Posted February 24, 2004 4:04 PM by mattH

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #13 from Marith

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:13:26 -0500

Must squelch urge to write a story with a fictionalized Ashcroft as the main character, just to see if the words "laughably improbable" appear in the rejection notice.

*squelch*

That's better. Though now I want a "LAUGHABLY IMPROBABLE" rubber stamp. It'd make reading the newspaper more fun these days.

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Posted February 24, 2004 10:13 PM by Marith

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #14 from David Goldfarb

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 01:27:07 -0500

Adam Lipkin: Isn't that truncation the problem that hitting "F11" twice is supposed to fix?

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Posted February 25, 2004 1:27 AM by David Goldfarb

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #15 from Adam Lipkin

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:34:46 -0500

David-- by gum, it is. And it worked. Thanks. It pays to read, don't it.

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Posted February 25, 2004 11:34 AM by Adam Lipkin

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #16 from ginny

Mon, 01 Mar 2004 23:24:17 -0500

File under "laughably improbable" and now cross-reference under "stranger than fiction." There's a Ngaio Marsh mystery called "Tied Up In Tinsel" that's your basic "English cozy" or manor house mystery. This particular lonely manor house on the edge of Dartmoor features a household staff that consists of convicted (paroled) murderers. Naturally, after a bizarre murder, they're all under suspicion. I always thought it was really contrived and unrealistic. But now this fact about Ashcroft's days in the governor's mansion reminds me what a truly bizarre and frightening man he is to be running Justice.

And quick aside re: Mrs Ashcroft... yikes! Got cognitive dissonance much, ma'am?

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Posted March 1, 2004 11:24 PM by ginny

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #17 from Skinny

Sun, 04 Apr 2004 21:43:31 -0500

Our government doesn't lie, the fat pigs deny.

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Posted April 4, 2004 9:43 PM by Skinny

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #18 from Julia Jones finds comment spam

Thu, 01 Jul 2004 02:36:27 -0500

*Really* blatant comment spam by one Frank...

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Posted July 1, 2004 2:36 AM by Julia Jones finds comment spam

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #19 from Xopher findeth spam de comment, yea verily

Tue, 14 Sep 2004 13:24:20 -0500

Damn spam slam.

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Posted September 14, 2004 1:24 PM by Xopher findeth spam de comment, yea verily

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #20 from Jonathan Vos Post

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 11:08:51 -0500

For Jeopardy: "The clue is 'Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and libraries."

[buzzer] "What four aspects of Freedom has the Ashcroft family sworn to destroy?"

And what does God tell General Ashcroft to say about this:

Cannabis May Help Combat Cancer-causing Herpes Viruses

Tampa, FL (Sept. 22, 2004) -- The compound in marijuana that produces a high, delta-9 tetrahydrocannbinol or THC, may block the spread of several forms of cancer causing herpes viruses, University of South Florida College of Medicine scientists report....

I'd guess that would depend on what music is playing at the time.

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Posted September 24, 2004 11:08 AM by Jonathan Vos Post

Ashcroft profiled -- comment #21 from cd sees comment spam

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 07:49:50 -0500

Again... But this one seems to be actually, you know, advertising for a "service", not just DOS-ing.

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Posted November 1, 2004 7:49 AM by cd sees comment spam