Next on Capitol Hill: When Senators attack

So who were they expecting, Janet Reno? Our nation's liberals had barely packed their bags from the election battle before they received a Christmas gift that, in their opinion, would prove slightly more harmful than your average fruitcake. President-elect George W. Bush's, DC '68, nomination of John Ashcroft, SY '64, for the attorney general position amongt his Back to the Future-ish assortment of Ford-administration reclamation projects has cast a shadow upon hopes for bipartisan agreement in the government.

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But let's be fair here. Ashcroft may be anathema to liberal views, but that doesn't diminish his validity as a candidate. It's one thing to say that you don't like what side the man's bread is buttered on, but Ashcroft's confirmation should depend only on how well he will uphold the law and the Constitution.

There's no question that the Ashcroft nomination ladles a heaping serving of conservativism in with the compassion. He has come down strongly against abortion, affirmative action, and gun control. He receives financial support from the religious right and connects his faith to his political agenda. He accepted an honorary degree from the infamous Bob Jones University. Clearly this man will not be mistaken for Jesse Jackson anytime soon.

Nor will he get in without a fight. All sorts of liberal organizations—groups dealing with women's rights, civil rights, labor, and even the environment—have banded together to protest Ashcroft's nomination. They have specifically criticized his staunch opposition to Judge Ronnie White's nomination to a federal judgeship. In 1999 Ashcroft torpedoed White by claiming that he was too soft on crime, citing a specific case where White dissented from a decision to give the death penalty to a man who deliberately killed three law enforcement officers and a sherriff's wife. Ashcroft's vociferous attack came as a surprise to White, who had expected mild protests within the Judiciary Committee, but nothing like the firestorm that the senator brought down upon him.

Ashcroft's aides have admitted that his motivations were not entirely wholesome. White's dissent against the death penalty created a convenient re-election issue for Ashcroft to brandish against his opponent, the late Missouri governor Mel Carnahan, who had been labeled soft on crime. Candidates for federal judgeships are rarely shot down in the Senate, and White was appalled at the way he had been exploited as a campaign issue.

Similar attempts to derail Ashcroft's nomination have come for two reasons, the first being a specific criticism of the way Ashcroft handled this situation. Ashcroft faulted White for frequently overturning death penalty verdicts, enabling death penalty critics to portray Ashcroft as overly enamored of the gas chamber himself. But while White's record did not indicate a strong predisposition against the death penalty, he did oppose it more frequently than the average judge appointed during Ashcroft's senatorial career. Also, White is black, allowing civil rights groups to claim that perhaps White should change his name to "Not White Enough." No evidence for racial discrimination against White has been found, though.

The second anti-Ashcroft argument has been based on purely ideological grounds. Ashcroft has received a healthy dose of character assassination during the past few weeks that have painted him as a racist and a bigot. The question is whether liberals can find any chinks in Ashcroft's technical armor, any specific written laws that he will fail to enforce. And that's just the problem—it will be awfully hard to prove that Ashcroft's confirmation will lead to imminent abortion-clinic bombings, the re-segregation of public schools, or the resurrection of the Confederacy. He cannot simply bang a magic gavel and effect legislation that is on the books.

Ironically, liberal senators hope to shaft Ashcroft as a candidate for much the same reason for which Ashcroft scapegoated White. His protests were based largely on legal philosophy and not on White's ability to do the job. The question about White's candidacy was not whether the death penalty should be enforced—he concurred with death-penalty rulings 70 percent of the time—but how often. Likewise, the objections to Ashcroft are completely political. He has constitutionally sound explanations for his positions on abortion, gun control, and affirmative action, and this makes him a valid candidate.

Ashcroft was wrong to shoot down White for political reasons, but that doesn't mean that the Senate would be right to do the same to him. It isn't enough that he doesn't interpret the law in a way that you or I like. What liberals must prove to the Senate is that Ashcroft will not enforce the laws that are on the books, and that's going to be an awfully tough thing to do. Jay Augsburger is a senior in Saybrook College.

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