Richard Cohen writes Tuesday in the Washington Post of Ashcroft's Attitude Problem . Cohen argues that Ashcroft is more dangerous than those he detains.

My job is to connect the dots. So follow me as I take you from a typical newspaper story about yet another convicted murderer being freed after DNA testing to the testimony last week of Attorney General John Ashcroft. The first is clear evidence of the imperfectability of the criminal justice system, and the second is the smug refusal to admit it. Ashcroft has a serious attitude problem.

Cohen begins with Ashcroft being questioned about the 762 post-9/11 detainees:

None of them -- that's precisely zero -- was ever linked to terrorist activities. Yet some of them were held incommunicado for months. Either they were refused lawyers or so many obstacles were put in their way that it amounted to the same thing. They were denied visitors. Some were held in solitary confinement, verbally harassed and threatened and, on occasion, allegedly physically manhandled. To all of this, Ashcroft responded with a shrug. "We make no apologies," he said -- and, of course, he asked for additional death penalties in terrorism cases.

Cohen protests.

In the first place, the Justice Department got things exactly backward. In this country, you're innocent until proven guilty -- not the other way around. Second, harsh and inhumane treatment -- keeping the cell illuminated 24 hours a day -- ought not to be tolerated. After all -- and it is worth repeating -- the detainees were never charged with any crime linking them to terrorism. Most of them were detained because they were Muslims or Arabs. In this country, that ain't a crime.

Cohen asks whether Ashcroft owed the detainees an apology.

Innocent people were held behind bars, sometimes cruelly, for months at a time. They were sometimes called names and told they would never be set free. The report highlights the experience of one woman who for two months was repeatedly told her husband was not being detained (he was) and who, even after she found him, was permitted to visit him only three times in five months. Isn't she deserving of an apology?

Cohen notes Ashcroft refused to apologize.

To hear him, the system worked perfectly. This is precisely the mind-set he brings to capital punishment, of which he clearly cannot get enough....Routinely, it seems, yet another person walks from death row, freed on account of DNA testing. Routinely, we hear of yet another case where the defense lawyer fell asleep, a lab technician lied or some cop got a confession out of some addled suspect who did not, as it turned out, commit that particular crime. Oops.

Cohen sums up with these thoughts--

But when they were cleared, the detainees were owed an apology. A more humble attorney general would have conceded that mistakes were made and procedures violated, and that these are serious matters of concern. In this country, we bend over backward to protect the innocent. We don't casually trash their lives and then walk away as Ashcroft did, saying tough luck.

Go ahead, connect the dots on Ashcroft yourself. A cavalier attitude toward civil liberties, an inability to concede mistakes, a refusal to see imperfections in the criminal justice system, a zealously irrational belief in the death penalty -- and pretty soon you can read between the lines of that Justice Department report: The attorney general is far more dangerous than any of the immigrants he wrongly detained.

How heartening to hear a journalist say it.

Update: Ruben Navarrette, Jr. of the Dallas Morning News calls for Ashcroft to step down.