Ashcroft, others making me wonder

[Via Booknotes] Attorney General John Ashcroft has been widely condemned in the past few weeks for his ridiculous outburst that anyone who opposes his (the Bush administration’s) proposed changes regarding privacy and civil rights is only helping the terrorists. Add my voice to those who think he’s living on another planet. But just what planet might that be? As Alice Cherbonnier of the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel writes, “AN IMPORTANT TENET of journalism is that you should always ask, ‘Who benefits?’”

Clearly, a large group of former Republican officeholders like ex-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci (college roommate of current DefSec Rumsfeld), ex-Secretary of State James Baker, Fred Malek (George Bush the First’s campaign manager), and–presumably–George H.W. Bush himself are raking in the dough through The Carlyle Group, one of the largest privately held companies in the world. One which owns many companies feeding on the public defense trough. As Shannon Jones writes on International Committee of the Fourth International website, The Carlyle Group: ex-government officials cash in. Here’s one group of rich and getting richer Republicans who benefit.

And possibly our terrorist enemies as well. The bin Laden family owned a stake in Carlyle until just after the 9/11 attacks. When the FBI wanted to investigate members of the bin Laden family, the White House allegedly made the Bureau back off. Are we all living on the same planet?