Atrios sends us to Frank Rich's column in the New York Times today where he recaps the last year in Slouching Towards 9/11.

After questioning whether Bush's strange assertion of executive privilege over the Clinton Pardons isn't just a prelude to his administration clamming up over Enron, Rich turns his attention to Ashcroft and the detainees.

"There's a legitimate debate whether the defeat of terrorism justifies constitutional shortcuts and that argument is playing out in court, where there have now been four judgments against the government this year, including a unanimous appellate decision this week. But more and more the argument is academic. The administration's blanket secrecy has less to do with the legitimate good of protecting our security than with the political goal of burying its own failures."

"By keeping the names and court proceedings of his detainees under wraps, John Ashcroft could for months cover up his law enforcement minions' inability to apprehend a single terrorist connected to 9/11. The same stunt has been pulled by designating prisoners "enemy combatants" at Guantánamo. Jose Padilla, the "dirty bomber," whose arrest was trumpeted by the attorney general as the breakup of a major terrorist plot, turns out to be a nonentity who may not be charged with anything. But as long as Mr. Padilla is locked away in a legal deep freeze, that embarrassment can be kept on the q.t."

Moving on to the subject of war with Iraq, Rich says:

"An all-out attack on Iraq will entail a level of risk and sacrifice that the U.S. has not assumed since Vietnam," wrote the author of "Black Hawk Down," the combat journalist Mark Bowden, this week. As this reality sinks in, support for war with Iraq is falling — from 70 percent last fall to 51 percent now, according to the new Time/CNN poll. A Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that only 40 percent would approve if there are ground troops and significant American casualties. "

Our view: Hardly a passing grade, let alone the inspired leadership we deserve from this team.