Lawyers at Loggerheads

Newsweek has an interesting article about the infighting during the past few years among the Bush administration's lawyers on issues such as torture, eavesdropping, and the president's authority as commander in chief.

It's hard to know how reliable the account is, since -- as the reporters noted -- many key players refused to comment. (Perhaps with a roster of all the lawyers, a process of elimination would reveal their anonymous sources, since so many are identified as refusing to comment.)

Nevertheless, it is interesting. If you read the entire five-page article, keep an eye peeled for the times when Attorney General John Ashcroft was on the side of those who took a more limited view of the president's authority. Ashcroft took a pounding from the left-wing wackos, but this article indicates they were wrong about him. (What a surprise: Left-wing ideologues being wrong about their deeply held beliefs. Will wonders never cease?)