John Ashcroft Now in Charge of Ethics at Blackwater

The left has had a few days of enjoyment since the killing of Osama bin Laden. Well, they're only enjoying it since a Democrat is president. You know they'd be freaking out if it happened under Bush and the story behind it kept changing as it does.

Anyway, they'll be back to their usual frothing rage once they read this.

Notorious private contractor Blackwater (which two years ago gave itself the new name Xe Services) has tapped former Attorney General John Ashcroft to head its ethics committee. It's a signal, Wired’s Spencer Ackerman writes, that the company will continue to pursue lucrative government security contracts. Blackwater, which has not been very successful in getting people to use the Xe Services name, has been trying to shed its Iraqi cowboy reputation since its founder, Erik Price, sold the company late last year. Ashcroft, who was the early face of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, has long-standing ties to Washington and will reassure federal officials that the company is now on the straight and narrow.

A federal judge recently reinstated the manslaughter and weapons case against Blackwater for the shooting deaths of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in 2007. The case had been tossed out in December 2009 because of the way the private contractors initial statements about what happened were obtained. Other black marks on Blackwater's resume include contractors obtaining AK-47s under cartoon characters' names and rampant steroid and cocaine use at parties in which personnel "would run around naked."