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Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
John Ashcroft reinvents himself	Choux	01/10/06
"""This is the way journalism is supposed to work. The Hill breaks a story on how the former US attorney general's lobbying firm is pushing to approve the sale to South Korea of an early-warning radar system made by an Israeli company with US technology. The competing bidder, BTW, is an American company, Boeing. Then the Chicago Tribune follows up on John Ashcroft's three-month-old career as a lobbyist, primarily "centered on companies that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes controversial policies he promoted while in office." In year-end filings, Ashcroft's firm, The Ashcroft Group LLC, reported collecting $269,000, including $220,000 from Oracle Corp., which won Justice Department approval of a multibillion-dollar acquisition less than a month after hiring Ashcroft in October. That represents in some cases only initial retainers or billings, the Trib explains. Oh, and there's a touch of irony: "As attorney general, Ashcroft sued Oracle in 2004 to try to block an earlier acquisition by the company." There's nothing illegal about what Ashcroft is doing, the Trib points out. It's just, well, tacky. "To take the kind of prestige and stature of the attorney general [and lobby] . . . . It seems a little demeaning of the office, honestly," the Trib quotes John Schmidt, an associate attorney general in the Clinton administration, now a lawyer at Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw of Chicago. And what does the new lobbyist do in his spare time? "In addition to his lobbying work, Ashcroft is a law professor at Regent University, with campuses in Virginia Beach, Va., and Washington, D.C., run by televangelist Pat Robertson." """
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 01/10/06 5:51 pm: >>He is not a man of principle; he is a money grubber. A phoney.<< Based on what? Clarification/Follow-up by Choux on 01/10/06 5:52 pm: See above. Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 01/11/06 12:51 pm: almost 40% of Abramoff's money went to Democrats . Think there was no quid pro quo attached to it ? The Democrats are so terrified about it that unlike Republicans they are not returning the cash .They are hoping to stay below the radar .I'm not just talking about small $2000 donations to their campaigns either . Harry Reid ;John Kerry and Ed Kennedy are awash in Abramoff dough . It is comical . The last days in office Duke Cunningham was walking the halls of Congress with an FBI wire on . Now all of them are in a bunker mode. but I'm telling you .From all appearances it looks like the Republicans are taking the lead in introducing reform . Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 01/11/06 2:03 pm: Choux, you too can trade cattle futures like the pros: How To Trade Cattle Futures If Hillary can do it, so can you! Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 01/11/06 2:08 pm: Steve ;See my rating of Elliot (lol) Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 01/11/06 3:05 pm: Chou, I know you are talking about Ashcroft. The question is why are you ONLY talking about Ashcroft? By the way, the answers to my examples: 1) Joe Kennedy, circa the 1920s, as a member of the Libby-Owens-Ford stock pool. He used the pool's purchasing and selling power as well as his media influence to manipulate the market. His actions were part of what caused the stock market crash of 1929 (and thereby the Great Depression), though he had shorted quite a few positions that made him even richer. Today what he did would be illegal, to say the least, but back then it was within the law... though seen as sleazy and detrimental to the world economy. 2) Joe Kennedy, circa the 1930s. Kennedy was the exclusive legal importer for Dewers Scotch and Gordon's Dry Gin during prohibition, licensed to import alchohol for medicinal purposes only. He made his money in alchohol when it was actually illegal to do so, and then he made even more by stocking alchohol at below market prices when he found out that prohibition was shortly going to be repealed, and then selling at market it when prohibition was repealed. 3) This could apply either to Ted Kennedy over the Chappaquidic scandal or Bill Clinton over any of his various sex/rape scandals, as well as the death of Vince Foster and the entire Whitewater affair. 4) This one is LBJ, regarding the Gulf of Tonkin Incident... an incident that never occured and that LBJ made up in order to deliberately escalate the war. LBJ was a major shareholder of a military weapons manufacturer, and wanted to get rich off of increased sales due to the war's expansion. He made the whole thing up. You have a habit, Chou, of only pointing out the "scandals" (even the nonexistant ones like the Ashcroft thing you posted above) without condemning similar (and worse) incidents on the other side of the fence. Admittedly, I have a tendancy to ignore the scandals on my side of the fence, and to strongly defend my partisans when I don't believe the scandal is true (as in the "Bush lied" canard, and the attampts to incriminate DeLay who hasn't done anything wrong). But I don't go searching for scandals where there are none, just to attack someone on the other side of the fence. I prefer to use IDEAS to counter my political opponents, rather than muckraking. And what do you want from Ashcroft anyway? He's not part of the Bush administration anymore. What's the use of digging up trash on him? Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by Choux on 01/11/06 3:29 pm: Because Ashcroft disgusts me!! LOL!! Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 01/11/06 3:34 pm: tom, That's what prompted me :) Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 01/11/06 4:18 pm: Chou, Honesty is a virtue. On the other hand, so is forebearance. :) Elliot Clarification/Follow-up by Choux on 01/11/06 4:20 pm: :) I guess I got tired of being circumspect; I just shoot my mouth off now, come hell or high water!!!

Summary of Answers Received	Answered On	Answered By	Average Rating
1. And the story is what? Sounds much like	01/10/06	Itsdb
2. Good thing Democrats are able to be consistant and not flip ...	01/10/06	drgade
3. As you wrote above, Ashcroft isn't doing anything illegal...	01/11/06	ETWolverine
4. That unfortunately is how the game is played . There is a re...	01/11/06	tomder55
5. Hello Choux: Me too! Ashcroft sucks! excon...	01/15/06	excon

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