former attorney general john ash krofcroft ashcroft.that was born the expression in manhattan if you see something, say something. that's sort of become the buzz word for anything unusual, you report it. of course, it can kind of fall on deaf ears because almost everything you see in manhattan, no offense, is a little unusual, but again, hope springs eternal that people learn from that. a fellow who really-- here, i am honored to have him with us, thomas is it a former fire department commissioner in this fine city of new york and he joins us right now. commissioner, i'll start right off with the controversy du jour, if you don't mind, that's the mayor not inviting the firemen, leaving aside the clergy for the ceremonies tomorrow. >> i don't get it. i've been to all the ceremonies, they've always been small, it's never been a ceremony that the fire department in general, and you know, in big ways, want to participate in. the guys are personal and hate the political baloney and the phoneies that jump on all of these things just to get a

rights was at the dia as the bush administration was so pedia sued several bush officials such as john ashcroft and john yoo donald rumsfeld who were directly responsible for the torture and lowest attention to which he was subjected and the obama administration vigorously defended those bush officials and insisted that they not be held liable in a court because they were immune as government officials beyond that it was the bush administration that originally appealed the seventeen year sentence to which could be was subjected but it was the obama administration once the the d.p. was perfected that pursue would be appealing to argued it in court and in the end demanded that he be given an even greater sentence you know and let's be very clear the seventeen year sentence is on top of the five years that he spent in prison with no charges so it's really twenty three years this seventeen years he was sentenced to a supermax president forms colorado which is the worst household that the world owes in terms of how persons function and even though i was twenty three years of torture and being in the

bush was running, he got the john ashcroft out of the race early on.torney general. >> i want to go to the -- i want to end with the keeper of the flame, peggy newton, you helped ronald reagan prepare some of the best speeches he ever gave, columbia speech, challenger 7 speak, broke my heart, the speak at normandy. where is the heart, what is it? >> we can forget the heart of the republican party. it's broad and it is not necessarily the base. it's not necessarily tea party. that's very much part of it, but it's broader than that. the people who are going to elect the next president in the middle who are kind of republicans but also kind of independent, they are watching, and they want to make sure they like what they are seeing, so i think this is not just about the base. however, good news for the republicans, this, what you see tonight, this is what draws the lightning. what's happening in washington is not drawing the lightning, the eyes, the sense of attention, the sense of drama. this is actually the exciting political thing happening in america,

in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, then attorney general john ashcroft was rushing back fromalling the shots, at the justice department. tell us about your memories of that day? >> good to be on, on such an important occasion. you are right, 10 years ago i was the head of the criminal division at the department of justice. like most people, i heard about the first plane hitting the world trade center. i assumed it was a pilot error. within a matter of minutes, when the second plane hit, i realized we were unattack. i went to the fbi operations center which was the command center for the response. together with director bob muller, brand new as fbi director, we began the process of identifying w was responsible and perhaps more important, making sure we didn't have a follow-on attack. >> the follow-on attack is what concerns everybody to this day. former congressman lee hamilton, famously said recently, most people he knows in the security and intelligence community believe that it is only just a matter of time until there is a successful attack on the homeland of this country

attorney general ashcroft wanted the patriot act passed within days after the attack and it was people like russ feingold and johnyers and pateric lay hi and groups like the aclu who said slow down, have a hearing of and we were only able to get hearings in the house. so most of the people did not have a chance to read it and many of the provisions that were sought in the patriot act have been sought after the oklahoma city bombing and rejected on civil liberties grounds on a bipartisan basis by people like bob bar and ross cobartlett. and so we know that the patriot act was passed under tremendous pressure and the government and the members of congress did not have time to read it. host: cliff, was the patriot act passed in a rushed manner? guest: it cuzz passed with some urgency considering what happened to us and the perception that we had basic gaps in our law enforcement, in particularly the wall that had been built up between intelligence gatherers and law enforcement. and there was some urgency to get that fixed. i think the patriot act fixed that. and maybe it passed hastely but there was a reason to move