The New York Times takes an exhaustive look at the Justice Department's flawed prosecution in the Detroit terror case. This is the case that Ashcroft personally vouched for in a press conference...earning him a rebuke from the Judge for violating a gag order.

Privately, senior Justice Department officials had doubts about the strength of the case even as they were moving to indict four Middle Eastern immigrants on terrorism charges. The evidence was "somewhat weak," an internal Justice Department memorandum obtained by The New York Times acknowledged. It relied on a single informant with "some baggage," and there was no clear link to terrorist groups. But charging the men with terrorism, the memorandum said, might pressure them to give up information.

"We can charge this case with the hope that the case might get better," Barry Sabin, the department's counterterrorism chief, wrote in the memorandum, "and the certainty that it will not get much worse."

Four more years of Bush is four more years of Ashcroft.