Dickens on Ashcroft

From the Washington Post:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that federal courts have endangered national security by ruling against the Bush administration on issues related to the war on terrorism.[...]

"The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war," Ashcroft said in a speech at the Federalist Society's national convention.

He added later: "Our nation and our liberty will be all the more in jeopardy as the tendency for judicial encroachment and ideological micromanagement are applied to the sensitive domain of national defense."

So much for swearing to uphold the Constitution. Mr. Bring-Back-the-Monarchy was referring, apparently, to a recent decision saying that President Bush couldn't lock someone up incommunicado forever without counsel or a hearing (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld), and a more recent decision that, duh, the Geneva Conventions apply wherever there's an actual war going on, even if the President says "no they don't." (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld).

And herein he ranged with that very numerous class of impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to themselves, as to their neighbors.

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, p. 52