Well, everyone is certainly excited (especially the Spirit of Justice statue) about John Ashcroft‘s resignation on Tuesday. Our Attorney General is taking his Crisco and going home to deface the constitution in the privacy of his own home.

While it is good news anytime someone as antithetical to the foundation of this country decides to leave, it is a hollow victory at best.

Ashcroft was not fired for his assault on civil liberties, his 0-for-3-year terrorist conviction record, or his insistence on using valuable FBI resources to target bong stores and putting Tommy Chong in jail.

He wasn’t shown the door because the administration decided that they wanted to move in another direction, wanted a different spokesman or someone to infuse new energy into the Justice Department.

Of course, Ashcroft wasn’t fired at all.

One person has been fired from this administration, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. He wasn’t fired because he didn’t do a good job, he was fired because he questioned what were ostensibly his own Treasury Department plans. Two other officials have resigned under similar circumstances: Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman and economic advisor Larry Lindsey. Whitman was critical of EPA policy, and Lindsey publicly suggested that the Iraq war would cost $200 Billion (proving that you can be fired even when you have an uncanny ability to see the future.)

In this administration, you don’t get fired for being incompetent, unpopular with the people, or even for failure. The only way to get fired is to give anything less than your full-throated support to any and all administration policies.

Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members are expected to lend credence to the policy in their area of expertise. There are some very smart people in this administration, but their main function is serving as mouthpieces and as window dressing. It is important to remember that we are dealing with “movement conservatism” as defined by Grover “drown the federal government in the bathtub” Norquist, Steve “errors, deception and falsehood” Moore and think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, and put into place by Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, Karen Hughes and the rest of the White House political operation.

This grand plan can only work from the top down, and if government officials across dozens of agencies and departments were making their own policy, the plan wouldn’t work. Cabinet members are in place to give a face to their department, organize staff and consult with lawyers on how to stretch the limits of whatever rules govern them.

Ashcroft will be replaced by another figurehead who will continue implementing the same policies while pushing for passage of Patriot Act II (something considerably easier without Ashcroft as a target of public outrage.)

So while it is, of course, good to see him off of the government payroll (for now), don’t be fooled into thinking that this is progress.

*Previously on 1115.org: Jessica Simpson asks the Cabinet some questions.

**Thanks to Madden for the inspiration for this piece.