Elizabeth has a nice piece on John Ashcroft defending the Patriot Act, but the thing that strikes me is his strange quote:

"If your idea of a vacation is two weeks in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, you might be a target of the Patriot Act. If you have cave-side dinners with a certain thug named bin Laden and if you enjoy swapping chemical weapons recipes from your joy of Jihad cookbook, you might be a target of the Patriot Act."

....which sounds a little too like the Saturday Night Live parody of Bush and Ashcroft in the show of December 1 2001, where Ashcroft - played by Darrell Hammond - says things like: "If the return address on your mail reads "A Cave".. you just might be a terrorist.

If you have just renewed your subscription to a magazine called "Nerve Gas Weekly", you just might be a terrorist"

"If your idea of getting stoned involves actual stones, there's a strong possibility that you might be a terrorist..."

Then Will Ferrell as Bush chimes in with: "If you are most familiar with me, George W., as a burning mannequin, then you might be a terrorist,"

and the classic:

"If you have a really long beard and you hang out in the desert, and you're not a member of ZZ Top, you might be a terrorist...

All good stuff.... but maybe the real AG is being a little too clever in making the cultural reference?