cannabisnews.com: You Can't Be a Moderate and Pick Ashcroft You Can't Be a Moderate and Pick Ashcroft Posted by FoM on January 10, 2001 at 09:35:58 PT By Robert Scheer, Times Contributing Editor Source: Los Angeles Times Senate Democrats must save George W. Bush from his scarier self. They must reject the appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general, an appointment that gives the extreme right its most cherished prize--the power to undermine decades of progress in civil rights, free speech and abortion rights. This is not a position for a right-wing ideologue, which Ashcroft certainly is. Outwardly, Bush plays the moderate. That's why he came so close to legitimately winning the presidency. During the campaign, he kept his distance from the GOP right wing while battling Al Gore for the support of centrist voters. Now, obviously not at all chastened by being the first president in more than a century to have lost the popular vote, Bush has boldly appointed Pat Robertson's favorite senator to the most important domestic position in his administration. Ashcroft believes that moderate is a dirty word. "Two things you find in the middle of the road: a moderate and a dead skunk, and I don't want to be either one of them," he thundered during his brief primary campaign as the far right's alternative to George W. All one needs to know about Ashcroft is that he achieved a 100% voting record from Robertson's Christian Coalition on every major vote he cast in the U.S. Senate, from abortion and the environment to the arts and the economy. But it's a voting record that cost Ashcroft his Senate seat in Missouri. Clearly, the political center is where Ashcroft's former constituents and most Americans want their government to be. The voting public's inability to decide between two moderate candidates for president was just one indication of its rejection of extreme politics. People expect the Justice Department to enforce laws regarding a woman's sovereignty over her own body, civil rights, gun control and drug treatment, among others. Yet here we have Ashcroft, a man who sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban abortion even in the case of rape and incest. How can we expect him to protect a woman's right to a medical procedure that he regards as murder? As for civil rights, Ashcroft was notorious in the Senate for systematically blackballing President Clinton's judicial and administrative appointees solely because they possessed a strong pro-civil rights record. Indeed, Ashcroft, in an interview with the neosegregationist Southern Partisan magazine, even flirted with the notion that the wrong side may have won the Civil War. Can he now be trusted to follow through on the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into the abysmal treatment of black voters in Florida? Hardly. Just go down the list of issues, and Ashcroft is farthest to the right on most of them. He's a stern opponent of laws that would prevent discrimination against homosexuals and was particularly mean-spirited in his attacks during the confirmation of James Hormel, who happens to be gay, as ambassador to Luxembourg. He's a darling of the National Rifle Assn. And, at a time of growing recognition, even by the retiring drug czar, that the drug war has failed, we face the prospect of an attorney general who, as a senator, voted against a law to provide funding for treatment. This measure was so noncontroversial that even Republican hard-liners like Orrin Hatch and Strom Thurmond were sponsors. Democratic Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who at first said he was inclined to grant Bush his choice as attorney general, says upon further reflection that Ashcroft must prove to his former colleagues in the Senate that he "will vigorously pursue the civil rights laws that he has--with good reason from his perspective--argued against for the last 20 years." Too late for such proof. Biden and his colleagues should make it clear that there can be no bipartisan cooperation if the Bush administration insists on insulting the majority of American voters by putting extreme ideologues in charge of Justice. They have an obligation to keep the faith with voters who gave Gore a more than 500,000-vote margin of victory in the popular vote and the Democrats a tie in the Senate. Those voters, as well as many who voted for Bush thinking he was not beholden to the right wing of his party, should not be betrayed in deference to the clubbiness of the Senate. Ashcroft took the gloves off when he blocked Clinton's appointees. It is time Senate Democrats showed the voters they can dish it out as well as take it. Ashcroft's supporters assure us that he will have no trouble enforcing laws that he disagrees with. But since he profoundly disagrees with so many, why put the man through such a test? Senate Democrats should spare Ashcroft the anxiety that derives from pretending to enforce laws he finds deeply immoral. Robert Scheer Is a Times Contributing EditorSource: Los Angeles Times (CA)Author: Robert ScheerPublished: Tuesday, January 9, 2001 Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles TimesAddress: Times Mirror SquareLos Angeles, CA 90053Fax: (213) 237-4712Contact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/Related Articles:Ashcroft - Out of Sight on The Right http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8252.shtml Can John Ashcroft Overcome His Ideology?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8247.shtmlIt's Bad News for Justice http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8214.shtml END SNIP --> Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #1 posted by FoM on January 11, 2001 at 22:45:48 PT: DRCNet: Oppose John Ashcroft for Attorney General DRCNethttp://www.drcnet.org/ Dear friend of drug law reform:As you've probably read in mainstream news accounts, former US Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) has been nominated by President-Elect George W. Bush for the office of Attorney General.DRCNet, as a nonpartisan organization devoted strictly to drug policy reform, is opposing the Ashcroft nomination because of his record as one of the most hawkish drug warriors supporting some of the most extreme drug war legislation during his tenure in the Senate. We are writing to ask you to visit a web site we've set up to encourage grassroots opposition to the Ashcroft nomination and to use the information and the online petitions there to help defeat this nomination while there's still time. If drug policy and related Constitutional issues are the criteria, there is no question that John Ashcroft has one of the worst records on Capitol Hill. As Senator, John Ashcroft sponsored a bill that would have simultaneously violated the spirit if not the letter of both the 1st and 4th amendments to the US Constitution: the "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act" would have criminalized certain drug- and drug policy- related discussions on the Internet, and would have allowed police to conduct secret searches of homes, with the residents never being informed before or after that the police were there. Indeed, in his six years in the Senate, Ashcroft proposed amendments to the Constitution a full seven times, including an amendment to make it easier to amend the Constitution.As Senator, John Ashcroft demonstrated an unwillingness to deal seriously with the problem of racial disparity in the criminal justice system. While outwardly professing support for a bill to study racial profiling, Sen. Ashcroft in reality use his chairmanship of the Subcommittee on the Constitution to bottle it up in committee for several months; the bill never made it to the Senate floor despite bipartisan support.In response to charges that the powder/crack cocaine sentencing disparity is racially discriminatory, Sen. Ashcroft rejected legislation recommended by the US Sentencing Commission and sponsored by African American legislators that would have reduced crack cocaine sentences to the level of powder cocaine sentences. Instead, Sen. Ashcroft supported a bill to raise the powder cocaine sentences -- despite a consensus among criminal justice experts that the disparities are driven by enforcement policy and prosecutorial bias in conjunction with the laws, and that powder cocaine enforcement is also carried out in a racially discriminatory way.Sen. Ashcroft objected vociferously to spending money on drug treatment rather than drug interdiction, claiming that treatment "enables" drug users and that enforcement is a more effective use of funds. But after decades characterized by intensive interdiction efforts during which time the availability of drugs has increased and the price plummeted, and despite study after study showing that treatment is dramatically more effective than enforcement, to claim that interdiction is more effective than treatment demonstrates an astonishing inability or unwillingness to evaluate drug policy in an objective manner. Indeed, there isn't clear evidence that drug interdiction is more effective than doing nothing; to claim interdiction is more effective than treatment is simply off the reality meter.As Attorney General, John Ashcroft would have enormous power and influence over policies such as these. Particularly troubling is his lack of seriousness about racial disparity in the criminal justice system, at a time when the problem of racial profiling is just beginning to get attention. The documents released recently by the New Jersey Attorney General's office on our web site -- show the US Dept. of Justice to be both hero and villain in racial profiling -- DOJ's civil rights division has played a leading role in forcing police departments to take steps to stop it, while DOJ's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has literally conducted national training programs explicitly encouraging racial profiling. To address racial profiling, DOJ needs to be headed by someone who will encourage the civil rights division and rein in the DEA's abuses in this area. Based on his record, John Ashcroft is not a sound pick to play such a role.We consider the mandatory minimum sentences that John Ashcroft so enthusiastically supports to be gross violations of human rights; and we deplore his apparent lack of allegiance to the spirit of the US Constitution that he was sworn to uphold. That Constitution is the highest law of the land, a law which is in part intended to place restrains on the forces that the Attorney General directs. This is not a matter of liberal vs. conservative or anti-crime or "pro-criminal," as the Senator has labeled some of his opponents. This is a matter of sanity in the criminal justice system and respect for basic Constitution rights.So please visit http://www.StopJohnAshcroft.org today and help stop the appointment of John Ashcroft as Attorney General -- or, just call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, twice, have them transfer you to each of your two Senators in turn, and urge they vote "no" on the Ashcroft appointment.If you are a conservative, or support the Ashcroft nomination for other reasons, and didn't read our clarifying notes issued last week http://www.drcnet.org/wol/167.html#urgentaction , we wish to emphasize that our opposition to the Ashcroft appointment is based strictly on DRCNet's cause of opposition to the criminal justice and military aspects of the "war on drugs." We are a nonpartisan organization, and in fact opposed President Clinton's drug czar nominee, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, five years ago, the only comparable Cabinet nomination since DRCNet was formed.We are criticizing only Mr. Ashcroft's record on drug policy issues, not his personal character nor his conservative political alignment. Our own supporters span the full range of the political spectrum -- from liberal to conservative to libertarian and all the rest -- and even include a few who have let us know they support the Ashcroft nomination for other reasons, despite disagreeing with him on drug policy. We respect their opinions, but decided to oppose the nomination nonetheless, because of the enormous power and influence that the US Attorney General has on drug policy -- hence http://www.StopJohnAshcroft.org to join that fight. Release Date: January 11, 2001 [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: