Rumsfeld is on the Nixon tapes being yes-man while Dickie rants about black people, and several days before the election Powell took some huge payment from a Middle East businessman for some unidentified service.
Naturally these villains will be replaced by others if they fail to win confirmation. But that process ties up the Repugs, puts them more on the political defensive, and reduces subsequent evils.
mbs
Linda Chavez as unwitting acolyte of the sanctuary movement? Let's see now - you "allow" someone who is at risk of deportation to stay in your house. Out of "gratitude" she cleans your house for you. Out of "charity" you occasionally throw her a few bucks. Compassion enabling hyperexploitation in my book.
As for Ashcroft, the worst part of that interview in Souther Partisan wasn't his formulaic praise of Jackson and Lee. It came when he suggested that the pro-confederate Missouri legislature-in-exile was the legitimate state government. That's a remark so obscure, and so unlikely to gain Ashcroft support from anyone but a few crazies with very long memories, that it can only be an expression of what he really thinks.