Ignorance is bliss - as long as the administration is on your side.

Today former US Attorney General John Ashcroft published this stupifying op-ed in the New York Times in defense of the telephone companies who cooperated with the Bush administration in illegal wire taps of suspected terrorists.

You will have to read it to believe it. But the essence of it is that the law is irrelevant. If some government official tells you its OK to break the law you are immune from suit.

Really!

Meanwhile, of course, his first successor has no trouble using DOJ for political purposes and the nominee for his second successor has trouble defining torture. One must hope that Bush's successor will have more respect for the Constitution, and for human dignity.