Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or Attorney general Michael Mukasey?

wdp

Let's be fair....Ashcroft should be in the running.

At least Ashcroft had enough honor to get out when he realized the magnitude of the treachery that he was in the midst of.

Are you kidding? Ashcroft didn't resign until 2005 saying "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

He didn't leave because he thought Bush was corrupt. He left because he wanted to cash in.

No, I thinks it's Homer Stille Cummings. After all, this poor shmuck supported unprecented increase of the government power over people during the fascist administration of FDR.

Here is a quick example:

"Cummings served as the chief protector of New Deal programs, and during his first week as attorney general, advised Roosevelt that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 permitted the president to close banks and regulate gold hoarding and export. Cummings personally argued the right of the government to ban gold payments before the U.S. Supreme Court and won the "gold clause" cases. "

In contemplating the worst Attorney General of all time, you should certainly not overlook Ed Meese (Reagan's Attorney General) and John Mitchell (Richard Nixon).

Remember Ed Meese? He said that folks who were arrested should be considered guilty (unless proven innocent, which he doubted could happen). After all, if they weren't guilty, then howcum they were arrested in the first place? That was the Meesian 'logic', at any rate---until he was indicted himself, for influence peddling, when suddenly his tune changed.

John Mitchell was a big crook in a crooked administration. And his wife thought Americans had way too much freedom.

I mean, the exact quote when he said people who are arrested should be considered guilty...

"Suspects who are innocent of a crime should [have the right to have a lawyer present during police questioning]. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he's not a suspect."

Attorney General Edwin R. Meese, quoted in The U.S. News & World Report, October 14, 1985

nicely done.

I mean, it's like I trust the liberal quoting, you know...

You can find a lot of references to the quote on the internet. The actual article would have been long before US News would have had an internet archive.

<link>

The best you guys could find were a few words in a most likely imprompu quick reply to something. Well, I guess it also means that Obama believes there are 57 states in America or that he sees dead people.

1. Explain this in any context in which it is not a scary indictment of the attorney general of the United States.
"You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect." Meese had a lot going for him that would put him in the running for worst ever. Did you read the link I provided? How about his involvement in Iran Contra?

Secondly, he worked for decades in the government, and if it is the ONLY half-baked quote of his, well, then you got effectively nothing on him. Moreover, which anti-freedom campaigns of his can you quote? FDR's AG pushed a number of fascistic policies, Reno burned down hundreds of people alive (granted, she got helped by the religious fanatics), same Reno illegally using disproportionate force, took a Cuban immigrant and sent him back to Cuba. And yet, with Meese, what you could find was one half-baked quote, not even a written reply by Meese, not even his actions, not even the whole article with exact quote and the actual details.

Come on....

As for Iran-Contra, I hope you can guess that I thought it was a great operation in the interests of US and Nicaraguan people. I fully approve of it.

Reno took a boy and returned him to his father. Who should have had custody? Waco started before she took office.

Meese resigned because there were questions about ethical problems that he couldn't quite answer. One was that the had received an interest free loan in return he got a guy a government job. The other major problem was Wedtech and Robert Wallach, Meese's lawyer and the $32 million contract that the army was pushed to award to a company that had no proven ability to do the job. It seems that Meese forgot to include a few bucks on his capital gains received from Wallach.

Iran Contra was against the law. The president is not allowed to sell weapons to anyone he wants, especially not a nation that is our enemy which has a formal embargo against it. You guys criticize Clinton, but the fact is that Iran helped kill the Marines in Beirut and held our embassy staff hostage for over a year and Reagan turned around and sold them spare parts for their planes and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missle systems.

In 1991 documents were produced which showed that Meese had lied about what Reagan knew about Iran Contra, but by then all of the participants had been given immunity by George HW Bush.