Cole also brings up Tariq Ramadan, a widely respected scholar that was hired by Notre Dame. The Department of Homeland Security prevented him from entering the U.S., using a provision of the Patriot Act that says one who uses their position of prominence to "endorse" terror organizations can be kept out of the country.

What does Cole make of these three developments? He says they are not isolated mistakes.

The President thinks he can win this war by "acting tough" and treating the rule of law and constitutional freedoms as optional. With enough fearmongering, that attitude may win him the election. But it will lose the war. Bush is playing right into al Qaeda's hands by further alienating those we most need on our side.

Update: As Ebob points out in the comments, Cole likely is referring to jury convictions--cases Ashcroft has proved at trial. At the beginning of the article, Cole writes:

On Sept. 2 a federal judge in Detroit threw out the only jury conviction the Justice Department has obtained on a terrorism charge since 9/11. In October 2001, shortly after the men were initially arrested, Attorney General John Ashcroft heralded the case in a national press conference as evidence of the success of his anti-terror campaign.

Noah Levitt analyzes the importance of the Department's failure in the Detroit case today at Findlaw, also referring to the case as Ashcroft's only conviction in the terror war:

year ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft boasted that this very prosecution was his first court victory in the war on terror. Since then, it has turned out to be his only such victory. And now, it's clear the prosecution was no victory at all - it was a debacle.

Due to the severity of its mistakes in the Detroit case, the Justice Department asked the Court to reverse the convictions.

In the memorandum, DOJ admitted its prosecution had been riddled with a "pattern of mistakes and oversights." For instance, it admitted that the prosecution deprived the defendants of important discoverable evidence - evidence it was required by law to produce. And it admitted that its lawyers had not been candid - to say the least - about this evidence. To the contrary, DOJ noted, the record of the case was "filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist" - when actually, it did, and the defendants were legally entitled to it.

Update: From blogger Balta:

The Bush Administration's war on terror. We may not convict terrorists, but we keep old music stars out of the country.