oh, bad move. really really bad move.
Sep. 16th, 2003 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedDon't piss off the librarians.
Attorney General John Ashcroft today accused the country's biggest library association and other critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's ability to pry into the public's reading habits.
In an unusually pointed attack as part of his latest speech in defense of the Bush administration's counterterrorism initiatives, Mr. Ashcroft mocked and condemned the American Library Association and other Justice Department critics for believing that the F.B.I. wants to know "how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel."
The association, which has argued for months that the government's new antiterrorism powers risk encroaching on the privacy of library users, took some satisfaction from the broadside.
"If he's coming after us so specifically, we must be having an impact," said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the library association's Washington office.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the department, said the speech was intended not as an attack on librarians, but on groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and politicians who he said had persuaded librarians to mistrust the government.
The American Librarian Association "has been somewhat duped by those who are ideologically opposed to the Patriot Act," Mr. Corallo said.
Mr. Ashcroft's remarks, he said, "should be seen as a jab at those who would mislead librarians and the general public into believing the absurd, that the F.B.I. is running around monitoring libraries instead of going after terrorists."
But it shouldn't hurt him too much with librarians. They never read the paper.
Heehee.
Attorney General John Ashcroft today accused the country's biggest library association and other critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's ability to pry into the public's reading habits.
In an unusually pointed attack as part of his latest speech in defense of the Bush administration's counterterrorism initiatives, Mr. Ashcroft mocked and condemned the American Library Association and other Justice Department critics for believing that the F.B.I. wants to know "how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel."
The association, which has argued for months that the government's new antiterrorism powers risk encroaching on the privacy of library users, took some satisfaction from the broadside.
"If he's coming after us so specifically, we must be having an impact," said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the library association's Washington office.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the department, said the speech was intended not as an attack on librarians, but on groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and politicians who he said had persuaded librarians to mistrust the government.
The American Librarian Association "has been somewhat duped by those who are ideologically opposed to the Patriot Act," Mr. Corallo said.
Mr. Ashcroft's remarks, he said, "should be seen as a jab at those who would mislead librarians and the general public into believing the absurd, that the F.B.I. is running around monitoring libraries instead of going after terrorists."
But it shouldn't hurt him too much with librarians. They never read the paper.
Heehee.
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Forehead SLAP
Date: 2003-09-16 07:52 am (UTC)I mean seriously, librarians? Could Ashcroft have picked a more sympathetic target?? Don't get me wrong, I wish nothing but the worst for this man. If the drooling simp fell into a chipper-shredder tomorrow, I'd probably piss myself laughing and then I'd send a few boxes of saltines to the White House with a note that read; "Time to make the best of a bad situation. Down the hatch! NUM-NUM!"
Whatever. If nothing else (and you'll have to excuse some sexism on my part here) but if nothing else clues the world in on the fact that John Ashcroft and all men like him suck and deserved to be painted funny colors by an angry mob, it's the fact that he's patently unaware of the first and arguably most important rule of intergender relations, that being Do Not Mess With Quiet Women.
WHERE ARE YOU JOHN WAYNE? AMERICA NEEDS YOU.
Re: Forehead SLAP
Date: 2003-09-16 07:56 am (UTC)Me personally, I want Gregory Peck back.
Re: Forehead SLAP
Date: 2003-09-16 10:49 am (UTC)Other favortites include, The Evil Dead series, Six String Samurai, Big Trouble In Little China, etc. etc. etc.
As for the link, that's fascinating actually. I had no idea. And Howard Hughes seemed like such a nice guy in The Rocketeer
re: The Conqueror
Date: 2003-09-17 08:42 am (UTC)Who can forget such timeless exchanges such as:
"For me, there is no peace while you live, Mongol!"
"You're beautiful in your wrath!"
and the classic pick-up line:
"I stole you! I will keep you! Before the sun sets you will come willingly to my arms!"
no subject
Date: 2003-09-16 08:18 am (UTC)They've got two hundred years of practice in finding anything about anyone. If it's stored anywhere, in any form, in any language, they'll find it. Period.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-16 10:58 am (UTC)Short of the bookish corps digging up some photos of him anally raping children that were taken in very good light, no amount of cockeyed neocon lunacy is going to get him ejected from a position of responsibility because he's an appointed official.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-16 06:49 pm (UTC)Zizka