By now practically everyone knows that John Ashcroft is resigning as Attorney General. Whether he was in any way pushed out or whether this is entirely his own decision, in part in response to his own equally well known health problems, I do not have a clue. What I do know is that when he was first appointed, I groaned. It was proof, if I needed any, that the new “Chimp” in the White House was a reactionary Christer. He had chosen one of his own to be the country’s number one law enforcer.
Then 9-11 came and Ashcroft’s job became quite serious. The Patriot Act was enacted and the attorney general charged with seeing to its enforcement. In short order, Ashcroft was the butt of almost every anti-Bush assault. “Ah, Ashcroft… Ah, the Patriot Act…” many of my friends and acquaintances said, rolling their eyes in disdain. Ashcroft was the scourge of democracy, the number one threat to our civil rights.
Yet, here’s the interesting thing. Not one… I will repeat in bold face… not one of the people I knew who excoriated Ashcroft and the Patriot Act ever read the legislation, which is short and easily available on line. (I know because I asked them. The subject was quickly changed. Kerry, as we know, like virtually everyone in Congress, voted for it and then made his, as usual amorphous, assertions that some parts should be amended.) Furthermore, despite all the bad-mouthing of Ashcroft as if he were the second coming of A. Mitchell Palmer, only one… I will put that in bold again… only one person, as far as I know, in a nation of some three hundred million may have been illegally incarcerated – Jose Padilla. And even that is inconclusive.
Yet I would still agree, as Theo Van Gogh would, I am sure, were he still alive, that religious fundamentalism is a highly dangerous phenomenon in this world. But I am now absolutely certain that those who thought or are still thinking that John Aschroft is or was a dangerous fundamentalist are lying to themselves or to us. Ashcroft, whatever his indiosyncracies, his prudish desire not to be photographed with nude statues, etc., was fully aware of one of Jesus’ greatest teachings – render unto Casear what is Caesar’s – and behaved accordingly. Nothing remotely happened during his tenure to dispute this. We owe Ashcroft a debt of gratitude for his service during exceptionally difficult times. And personally, I think I have learned something from him in a strange way. I used to be rather intolerant of people of faith. I am now less so.
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9 Comments
1. Les Nessman:Ashcroft got all of the slings and arrows of the Left and none of the credit. I think he was a fair man who did an exceedingly difficult job. The hatred of religion by Liberals was at it’s worst in their attacks on him. I hope he has a happy and peaceful retirement.
Nov 11, 2004 - 10:16 am 2. Jim:Roger, I am an atheist (trumping your mere agnosticism), and I have a deep and fond regard for religious life (including only the decent kind, of course, which there is much of). Since time immemorial many religions have contributed immeasurably to giving lives moral insight, depth of value, and therefore to making them good lives.
What is crucial in regarding people of faith with suspicion is that we recognize where they are disposed to advance their moral and political views only on the basis of argument and reasoning with us, and not on the basis of mere a demand that we share their faith. They often take this reasonable stance (e.g., the plethora of arguments given by Bush, the plethora of arguments given by NRO every day), and when they do, it shows that their religiosity is perfectly salutary. For you and I to be intolerant of such reasonable people of faith would be far out of line. In fact, my default position is to regard religious Americans with as much trust, and as little suspicion, as I regard unreligious Americans.
Nov 11, 2004 - 11:08 am 3. rfagin:Mr. Simon:
You do indeed owe Mr. Ashcroft a debt of gratitude. He was in strumental in restoring the effectiveness of the Justice Department after years of willful mismanagement by his predecessor, Janet Reno. It was Mr. Ashcroft’s Justice Department that put the corporate crooks in prison, after all. It was Mr. Ashcroft who restored credibility of the FBI after the Waco disaster. And for all the weeping about the Patriot Act, I hardly heard of any artists being put in jail for their political expression – notwithstanding the fact that much of it prior to the election was seditious at best and positively treasonous at worst. Lighten up. Being a devout Christian does not in and of itself consitute religious “fundamentalism” (that word here charged with its connotation rather than its denotation). We could do much worse than to have public servants of Mr. Ahscroft’s intergrity and diligence holding high office.
Nov 11, 2004 - 11:57 am 4. David R. Block:Dear Roger,
Snopes has the deal on the statue thing. It’s not all that it is cracked up to be.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/ashcroft.asp
Nov 11, 2004 - 12:05 pm 5. Kevin P:Roger:
Your use of the render unto Casear qoute is one of the basic teaching of most Evangelical Churches that the Left ignores when they try to paint all religous voters as unthinking morons. There is no doubt that many people on this site would vigoursly disagree with many of the stances that most of these churches espouse. But what most of the MSM is ignorant about is the basic stance that most churches teach when discussing politics.
It is always stated that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. Our pastor teaches us not to put our faith in political parties.They discuss issues based on their reading of the Bible but they always point out when the Bible is agnostic on a issue. They also point out that voting is a private act and that people can rightly disagree on which party should be backed.
The Sunday before the election a prayer was given. The pastor reminded everyone to vote, not who to vote for. He then reminded everyone that whoever won it is our duty as Christians to respect the elected leader and to respect the democratic process.This does not mean that the Church doesn’t take stances on important issues but they take pains to limit it to issues, not parties. The MSM and the far left could learn about how to handle losing an election from those knuckledragging Evangelicals
Nov 11, 2004 - 12:07 pm 6. rgvdh:Whenever liberals of my acquaintance start going on about Ashcroft, I just point out that he has yet to send tanks into anyone’s house and burn their children to death.
Nov 11, 2004 - 2:11 pm 7. Silicon valley Jim:The Patriot Act was enacted and the attorney general charged with seeing to its enforcement.
Your formulation is exactly correct, and it points up the problem with much of the criticism of Ashcroft: those doing the criticizing blame him for the Patriot Act. Of course, anybody with any knowledge of the Constitution knows that Congress passes laws, and the attorney general enforces them. While any governmental attorney has some discretion as to which cases he will prosecute or defend, it remains his responsibility to enforce laws.
Nov 11, 2004 - 3:09 pm 8. Syl:Amen.
When Bush first came on the scene, a friend of mine said “I wish he wouldn’t say ‘God’ so much”. I shrugged. But I realized I had had the same reaction to Bush as she did. It was at that moment I sensed there had been a change in the culture (through MSM for me) and I had blithely gone along. To even utter the word ‘God’ had become politically incorrect.
From then on I made a conscious effort not to let the word ‘God’ bother me. And me a preacher’s kid, whoodathunk I’d stray so far, eh?
So now I simply see Bush as a deeply religious man but his religion is personal. God doesn’t talk to him, instead Bush asks God for strength. We should all be able to live with that.
I had a bit harder time dealing with Ashcroft, however, because he was, well, a bit of a prude. And he was in a position to DO something about it. But I’ve known prudes who weren’t especially religious so ::shrug::
The Patriot Act doesn’t bother me, never has. And, yes, I’ve read it. But reading it is not enough if you don’t know that the PA is simply re-organized and re-codified existing statutes. These have been extended to cover terrorism and to take new technology into account. If you don’t know what the law already was, you would think this was all new stuff and go apesh*t.
Oh, how those librarians screeched.
There is value, and necessity, in the tug-o-war between sides on issues such as the PA. But hysteria only harms the process.
I feel bad for Ashcroft because I think the criticism has been over the top, and I believe he was trying his damn best to protect Americans. But I don’t doubt his replacement would too.
Nov 11, 2004 - 7:29 pm 9. Hipocrite:You use the word “short.” The Patriot Act may be short when compared to, say, War and Peace, but when considered alone, at over one hundred and fifty pages, and fifty thousand words, it’s not short.
Nov 12, 2004 - 9:08 am