| DrudgeReportArchives.com | ||
| Today's DrudgeReport.com Drudge's Special Reports | Recent Headlines Popular Headlines Time Line | |
  CONSERVATIVES TURN ON ASHCROFT Tue Jul 23 2002 20:58:38 ET Many religious conservatives who were instrumental in pressing President Bush to appoint John Ashcroft as attorney general -- now say they have become deeply troubled by his actions, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report in a blistering Page One spread on Wednesday. "His religious base is now quite troubled by what he's done," Grover Norquist tells the TIMES's Neil Lewis. MORE Several Bush advisers have begun complaining that Ashcroft has projected himself too often and too forcefully. More significantly, they say privately that he seems to be overstating the evidence of terrorist threats, the paper claims. Conservtives cite Ashcroft's anti-terrorist positions as enhancing the kind of government power that they instinctively oppose. Norquist: "If there hadn't been this big government problem, Ashcroft would have been talked about as the Bush successor. Instead, the talk is that 'too bad we pushed for him."' Ashcroft was also criticized by some in the administration for declaring early on that the case of John Walker Lindh was a major terrorist case, the paper reports. Some officials in the Justice Department believed that the attorney general made needlessly harsh public comments about Lindh. The case came to an abrupt end last week, when Lindh pleaded guilty to two felonies and the department dropped the most severe terrorism-related charges against him, treating him as a far less important figure than depicted by the attorney general. Developing... |
|
The Drudge Report does not own, operate or maintain DrudgeReportArchives.com and is not responsible for it in any way.
Drudge Report : E-mail: drudge@drudgereport.com Matt Drudge's Book: Drudge Manifisto Matt Drudge on social media: Twitter (occasionally) Matt Drudge music: Playlist Home | DMCA | Link Decay General Support: |
