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John Ashcroft -- The Best Man For the Job
(No. 10, January 23, 2001)

The following are recent quotes on President Bush's nomination of Senator John Ashcroft for the office of U.S. Attorney General.

"I think he is going to have -- seriously -- a number of Democratic votes for him. I could well be one of those votes. ..."

(Democrat Senator John Breaux, CNN's "Crossfire," 1/22)

"His stance on abortion is a bogus issue. Pro-life people should be allowed to serve in our government. It was outrageous that there wasn't one pro-life person in the Clinton cabinet. So much for diversity.

" ... He will strictly enforce the law, which we desperately need in this country after the inept Janet Reno."

(Bill O'Reilly on John Ashcroft, Fox News Channel, 1/22/01)

"Two weeks ago, the largest coalition of activist groups ever assembled declared holy war on George W. Bush's attorney-general nominee, former Missouri senator John Ashcroft -- arch-conservative, abortion foe, and Assemblies of God congregant. The campaign flouted American constitutional practice. Since 1789, only nine cabinet nominees have been rejected in the Senate, and none for ideological reasons in an incoming administration. No matter: Led by People for the American Way, the NAACP, and the National Abortion Rights Action League, literally hundreds of the best-funded and best-trained pressure groups in the country began combing through Ashcroft's record to paint him as an extremist, particularly on matters of abortion and race.

"In hearings, Ashcroft gave them all the ammunition they could have wanted. He neither swallowed his words nor muddied his positions, defending himself with more-than-necessary candor and elaborating on his answers even where he wasn't asked to. ... Yet, by the end of the first day of testimony, the anti-Ashcroft forces looked as if they had seriously overplayed their hand. ..."

(Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard, 1/29/01)

"In their desperate, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink attack on attorney general-designate John Ashcroft, the senators opposing his confirmation are claiming that Ashcroft cannot meet his own standards for executive-branch service. Specifically, they suggest that, because Ashcroft voted in 1997 against Bill Lann Lee's confirmation to head the Justice Department's civil-rights division, now they are entitled to vote against his confirmation as attorney general. ...

"Consider the example Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer gives for Ashcroft's zealotry: 'He believes that abortion is murder, that it's wrong and must be stopped.' Well, yes, people who oppose abortion have to believe that a life is being taken, since otherwise there is no more reason to oppose it than the removal of gall bladders. And if it is a human life, then, yes, 'it's wrong and must be stopped.' So Schumer is essentially saying that anyone who is pro-life is an extremist and, therefore, disqualified from being attorney general.

"But the fundamental problem with the Bill Lann Lee analogy is that, while at his confirmation hearings John Ashcroft has given broad and specific promises that he will enforce even laws that he disagrees with, Lee's confirmation hearings three years ago provided no such assurance. ...

"... There was plenty of evidence that Bill Lann Lee would not follow the Constitution as it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court -- and, indeed, he has not. There is no such evidence -- none -- that John Ashcroft will not do so."

(Roger Clegg, National Review, 1/19/01)

"Just as his critics expected, the hearings for John Ashcroft bristled with defiance and self-righteousness. The only problem was that most of those negatrons came not from Ashcroft, but from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Ted Kennedy, red with hostility, sputtered speeches instead of questions. And Sen. Dick Durbin, who's up for re-election next year, made sure no one confused him with former Sen. Alan Dixon, who lost his seat after voting to confirm conservative Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

"But he is Bush's choice, and he deserves a chance to prove that he will uphold the law without prejudice.

"The Senate should confirm Ashcroft."

(Chicago Tribune, Editorial, 1/23/0)

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