This quote from John Ashcroft’s new book, Never Again, conveys much about the task of serving as Attorney General during a period (2001 to 2005) marked by the largest and most devastating terrorist attacks in American history. The metaphor of catching spears is an aptly martial one, for Ashcroft served as a member of a war Cabinet. Early in his tenure, the country was wrenched into a state of war by the attacks of September 11. Haunted, like all Americans, by images of hijacked airplanes and burning buildings, he immediately set about his duty of re-orienting the Justice Department toward the terrorist threat and ensuring that the Department did everything in its power to prevent further attacks. As September 11 made all too clear, the front lines of this war are not only those manned by our soldiers in faraway lands; our enemies have brought the conflict to us, and law enforcement agents and prosecutors confront them on our own soil....