As our country begins a new millennium with a new president, I sit and wonder what George W. Bush was thinking when he nominated Sen. John Ashcroft for attorney general. Bush was no more right in his choice than Al Gore was with his declaration that he invented the Internet.
If America, and, for that matter, our new president, learned anything from the extensive battle fought in the Sunshine State, one thing should be certain: As our country enters the 21st century, the citizens are greatly divided as to how our country should be run. With this in mind, the first issue on Bush’s agenda should not be tax reform or campaign finance, but domestic healing.
By this I mean to assert that Bush must prove his ability by healing a land greatly divided over the turn of events within the last two months. However, Bush’s decision to nominate Ashcroft to head the Department of Justice solely aggravates the current condition of discord in our country, and is quite simply a horrible choice for attorney general.
To understand Bush’s mistake, one must understand what the position of attorney general encompasses. The head of the Department of Justice is one of the most powerful domestic positions in any president’s administration. The attorney general is the nation’s top cop and lawyer.
He is like the Dick Tracy of the entire country, supervising the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Immigration Naturalization Services and the U.S. Marshals. With this position comes the ability to decide how to spend valuable money and time to combat crime for example, Reagan’s administration spent resources mainly on combating organized crimes and drugs. The attorney general also has a great influence in the appointment of judges to the Superior Court.
So why is Ashcroft a bad choice for attorney general? The answers lies within his character, which can be understood by studying his career, and also in the issues that have presented themselves as being relevant in the next four years.
Ashcroft’s actions have continuously depicted him as someone who is not the biggest fan of equality. Beginning in 1977, Ashcroft opposed court-ordered desegregation in the public schools of St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1983, he opposed a voluntary busing scheme in which 22 school districts in white suburbs approved having inner-city kids brought to their schools.
He has vetoed laws that would help bring out black voter turnout in St. Louis. Ashcroft even helped defeat James Hormel’s nomination to be ambassador to Luxembourg because of Hormel’s openly known homosexuality. Probably the largest controversy surrounding Ashcroft lies with his opposition of the nomination of Ronnie White, a black judge, to the federal bench.
Because of this record, many civil rights activists have been enraged by his nomination to head the justice department, and they should rightly be angered. After all, Ashcroft may not be a racist, but it is obvious his personal conservative views are affecting his political decisions to the detriment of equality.
Civil rights activists are worried that Ashcroft will enforce the laws he values and deny the works of the past 30 years that strove to establish all men as equal. Ashcroft responds as any politician would, saying he will put aside his personal differences and uphold the law. I say bologna. (I would like to say something else but am not allowed to do so.)
How can America trust Ashcroft to uphold laws that he does not believe in, when history has shown that Ashcroft defies the law and does as he wishes, such as he has with desegregation and busing? If America, as George Santayana said, “”does not remember the past, [we] are condemned to repeat it.”” I, for one, do not want to repeat the harsh times when people had to battle for their equality.
Civil rights are not all that are at stake, but the issues of women’s rights and abortions are threatened as well. Ashcroft has forever been a staunch supporter of the anti-abortion movement. His wish is for a law that would ban abortion in all cases except when the mother’s life is threatened.
Ashcroft even fought the nomination of former Surgeon General David Satcher because Satcher did not support partial-birth abortion bans. Ashcroft’s personal convictions are obviously very important to him and have determined his responses to many policies and people. If Ashcroft has fought against precedents like Roe v. Wade before, what will make him completely change his ways and now support those laws? Or is he assuring the public of future good deeds, so he can become Attorney General and have the chance to alter the laws he despises?
The issue is not whether or not abortion is right, but if Ashcroft can support the current laws that say a woman has the right to choose. I say no man with Ashcroft’s record can undergo a full transformation to become something he is not. Ashcroft has even opposed safety locks on guns and the closing of the gun show loophole. Ashcroft even wishes to allow concealed weapons. The National Rifle Association and Charlton Heston have long backed Ashcroft.
This is not a man of equality who would enforce laws for the good of all people; he would enforce them only for the good of the people who see the world in his eyes. This is not the job of an attorney general, but rather a job of a senator, as Ashcroft is and should remain.
The office of attorney general is too influential and too important for us to let a biased man take it, because the department greatly affects all of our lives. Ultimately, America and Bush should realize that Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. Shouldn’t her right-hand man be so, too?
