Yes, I understand that Janet Reno burned little children, gunned down the Weavers and sent jack-booted storm troopers in search of Elian Gonzalez. In all those circumstances she demonstrated little patience, haphazard planning and general incompetence. She should have been fired soon after she took control of the Justice Department.

Reno was incompetent, but Ashcroft is downright diabolical.

He is using his position as head of the Department of Justice to push a moral agenda. When he's not busy covering the statues of justice, he's bullying areas of the country which don't comply to his moral standards while he's subjectively deciding which laws to enforce.

Ashcroft has a problem with the Northeast. It seems that Connecticut and New York are not killing enough people for his taste. He recently overruled recommendations not to persue the death penalty in a dozen cases in those states. This action is part of his campaign to apply the death penalty uniformly. And rather than lower the number of instances of capital prosecution in the South, he's determined to raise the number of instances in the North. This application of his moral sense of justice takes precedent to the Constitutional right to trial by jury in the state and district in which the crime was committed. To date, Ashcroft has rejected prosecutorial recommendations at three times the rate of his predecessor. Did he duck out of class during Sixth Admendment discussions?

His recent enforcement of U.S.C. Sections 846, 853 and 863 demonstrates this subjective enforcement of laws related to his moral agenda. Federal law prohibits the sale of products which are "primarily intended or designed to be used in ingesting, inhaling or otherwise using controlled substances." If a pipe is pompous and made of wood, it is a legal tobacco delivery system, but if it has feathers dangling from the sides... well, don't let John Ashcroft catch you with it. As a result of Ashcroft's efforts to rid America of roach clips, fifty-five defendents are going to appear in court and explain how their devices were never intended for use with illegal narcotics. Only the poorly defended will be punished for this "crime."

If Ashcroft tells me he's never smoked pot, then I'll believe him. His paraphernalia list is far too short. If he had smoked pot in college, then he would have known to crack down on toilet paper tubes, tin foil, apples, coke cans, etc. I suspect he really believes that's he's dented illegal drug consumption by limiting internet bong sales.