Two heroes this week: Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington and Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly
Even polite questions produced an outburst out of Ashcroft that could have come out of Joe McCarthy in witch hunts of the 1950s. “Your tactics only aid terrorists — for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve,” he told a hearing.
Ugly stuff. One of the few standing up to it was Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “Who should be watching the watchers?” she asked Ashcroft.
He sneered at her, saying: “You remind me of a spate of cartoons that has appeared in the last week, and it’s generally a kid sitting on Santa’s knee and Santa saying, ‘I know when you’ve been sleeping, I know when you’ve been awake, I know when you’ve been bad or good — and the kid looks up and says, ‘Who are you, John Ashcroft’?”
The AG’s handlers thought it hilarious, but Cantwell quietly observed: “I’m not sure everybody in America is laughing at that.”