JOHN ASHCROFT is unfit to be the attorney general of the United States.
He is an extremist who is against civil rights, enforcement of voting rights, civil liberties and equal rights for gays.
He has sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
I can write this with a clear conscience because the record shows that I favored the firing of Janet Reno, the bumbling, partisan Democratic attorney general.
Ashcroft’s public record shows a synergistic pattern of dislike of minorities, abhorrence of diversity, insensitivity to women, an absence of impartiality and placing his views above the Constitution.
Missouri Sen. Ashcroft (like Trent Lott and Bob Barr) has trafficked with a neoconfederate hate group that still idolizes Jefferson Davis and calls Republican Abraham Lincoln a “tyrant.”
In 1998, when he was considering running for president, Ashcroft gave an interview to a crackpot publication called “Southern Partisan,” which reeks with nostalgia for the defeated slave owners.
Ashcroft told these bigots that their magazine, “helps set the record straight” by “defending southern patriots,” like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
“We’ve all got to speak up,” Ashcroft added, “or else we’ll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda,” -i.e. slavery.
This interview provides the context to understand what Ashcroft has done to stop confirmation of highly qualified blacks and other minorities during his term in the Senate.
In his most notorious escapade, Ashcroft blocked the appointment of Ronnie White to a federal judgeship. White was a distinguished jurist and the first black ever named to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Ashcroft smeared White as “pro-criminal,” and misrepresented his record on death-penalty cases.
Ashcroft did not display any Senate collegiality to Ronnie White, or any deference to the president’s power of appointment.
Ashcroft’s office even contacted the head of the Missouri Police Chiefs Association and asked them to oppose White’s nomination. The police chiefs refused, because White was fair and impartial.
But Ashcroft’s smear worked. White’s confirmation was defeated, 55-to-45, in a straight party-line vote.
I can’t wait for Ronnie White to testify at Ashcroft’s confirmation hearing.
Ashcroft also denounced the professional (and black) David Satcher when he was nominated for surgeon general.
Ashcroft also opposed the confirmation of Asian-American Bill Lann Lee for the top civil-rights job in the Justice Department.
And he led the (unsuccessful) opposition to the confirmation of the openly gay James Hormel to be an ambassador.
The intolerant Ashcroft also defends the right of schools not to employ gay teachers. I take special offense at this idiocy because the single most inspiring teacher my own kids had at PS 41 was the late Arnold Willens.
Ashcroft is a neon sign advertising, NO INCLUSION, NO DIVERSITY.
If Pat Buchanan were on medication, he would be John Ashcroft.
President-elect George (“I’m a uniter, not a divider”) Bush could have picked a Republican for attorney general who was unifying. He was considering ex-Missouri Sen. John Danforth and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot.
The Christian Coalition vetoed the conservative Racicot. His “sin” was trying to extend the Montana hate-law statute to cover gays after Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming.
Last week, singer Barbra Streisand phoned eight Democratic senators and urged them to oppose Ashcroft’s nomination. Among those she spoke to were Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Paul Wellstone (Minn.), Ted Kennedy (Mass.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.) and John Kerry (Mass.).
It was a wake-up call to the star-struck liberals. Since Streisand’s calls, Schumer and Kerry have begun sending signals they might oppose this abomination of a nomination.
Pundits like to make fun of Streisand’s politics, but she has better instincts -and less timidity -than a lot of clubby Democratic senators
Speak up, Hillary! Stop interviewing ghostwriters and start reading Ashcroft’s record.
Wake up, Corzine! Stop counting your stock options.
The Justice Department is the last place in America where a hater should be harbored.