This is interesting

Political Animal notes that even the Bush Justice department may not have approved of the evesdropping program. When John Ashcroft (allegedly) even has problems with the program, what does that tell you.

And this isn't the first time that real lawyers in the Justice department have had problems with Bush. (Not that Ashcroft qualifies, but you get my point.) Here is a list of other cases:

DoJ officials recently leaked word, for example, that attorneys in the in the Civil Rights Division concluded that Georgia's poll-tax law was discriminatory against minority voters and should be blocked from implementation, but they were quickly overruled by Bush-appointed higher-ups. Moreover, the lead attorney in the government's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry recently told reporters that her politically appointed bosses undermined her team's work on the case. And earlier this month, the Washington Post reported on leaked memos showing that DoJ officials concluded, unanimously, that Tom DeLay's re-redistricting scheme in Texas violated the Voting Rights Act -- but once again they were overruled by Bush's political appointees.

I remember when conservatives felt that the Clinton administration was more about politics than anything else. And some of those complaints were fair. But by comparison, it is hard to find anything that this administration that is not driven by ideological partisan goals.