A Qualified Defense of John Ashcroft

Now that he's resigning and the subject of liberal condescension to religious people is in the news, I think it's time to offer a qualified defense of John Ashcroft. To be perfectly clear here and not be accused of having become some kind of Ashcroft-apologist, let's set the terms of the debate. In 2000, and then again in 2004, a conservative Republican won the White House. I am neither a conservative nor a Republican. As such, I don't really approve of any of the people he's appointed to any office. That, however, is in the nature of things. One can and should expect even politicians with whom you disagree to conduct themselves in office in a manner that reflects neither gross incompetence nor gross corruption. George W. Bush and his appointees have repeatedly failed on this latter score. That, and not the fact that they have an ideology I do not share, is what makes this administration so remarkable.

Ashcroft, I think, is basically an exception to this trend. For all the talk of Ashcroft and civil liberties, it has pretty consistently been Don Rumsfeld, rather than Ashcroft, who's gone the furthest in shredding the rule of law in the pursuit of terrorism suspects. The alterations to the American criminal justice system that have come from the Justice Department -- as witnessed in the USA PATRIOT Act, rather than the Defense Department's bizarre "let's hold prisoners off the books scheme" -- almost entirely reflect long-held desires of the professionals on the DOJ staff and in the FBI. That does not make all of these things good ideas. It does mean, however, that John Aschcroft has nothing in particular to do with the fact that they wound up getting proposed and implemented after 9-11-2001. The Clinton administration, in fact, proposed similar measures and the wish list that became the USA PATRIOT Act was largely developed during the Clinton years. Some of this stuff is bad, and more of it than I think most liberals recognize is good, but very little of it has much of anything to do with Ashcroft.

On the "values issues" Ashcroft has substantive views that I find repugnant. And yet, near as I can tell Ashcroft has conducted himself in office with regard to these issues in a perfectly appropriate way -- attempting to enforce the existing laws. There was, during his confirmation hearings, this subtext that Ashcroft would somehow undermine Civil Rights law or turn a blind eye to anti-abortion terrorism or some such thing. It hasn't happened. Civil Rights enforcement hasn't been quite as vigorous as I would like, but this is what happens when the Republicans get into office. Again, Ashcroft is not the issue.

Nor has the Justice Department displayed the proclivity for screwing things up that we've witnessed over and over again from the national security and economic policy teams. On those two fronts one can point to fairly long strings of disasters, where courses of action were embarked upon contrary to the advice of most qualified experts, with almost exactly the results the qualified experts would have predicted. You've seen a bizarre policymaking process in which different parties don't really debate, and the president doesn't really consider his options before charging off in one direction or another. I have no idea whether the Interior Department is being mismanaged in a similar way, but that's because no one ever talks about the Interior Department. Ashcroft, on the other hand, has been a constant subject of liberal and Democratic scorn since the day of his appointment, and allegations of this sort don't seem to have arisen.

In sum, I don't expect liberals to like John Ashcroft. He's on the other side. We disagree with him about a bunch of stuff. We shouldn't like him. But by that same token, we shouldn't like any of Bush's people. The question is why does Ashcroft get singled out as particular bad among this crew? People hate Bush with good reason. Likewise Cheney and Rumsfeld and, for those who know there names, many of Cheney and Rumsfeld's subordinates. These are men who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in screwing the country up. But what has Ashcroft done to deserve elevation to the Cheney/Rumsfeld pantheon of badness? Not much. His decision to appoint a professional prosecutor as his Deputy Attorney-General and his subsequent decision to recuse himself from the Valerie Plame matter has been the source of the only serious criminal investigation into White House conduct that we've seen over the past four years. He has not staffed his agency with hacks and know-nothings. The Justice Department's dim view of civil liberties is longstanding and reflects the widespread outlook of law enforcement professionals, and the FBI's troubled relationship with counterterrorism likewise long predates the Bush administration.

It's hard for me to avoid the conclusion that, in this case, much of the ire Ashcroft has attracted reflects a kind of liberal prejudice against his religious beliefs. I think these beliefs are funny, too. Annointing yourself in Crisco? The rumors that he thinks calico cats are tools of Satan? Weird stuff. His singing. Weird and hokey. I really, really, really wouldn't want to have a beer with him. And he doesn't drink for religious reasons. Weird. Or gamble. Weird. Or dance. Weird. But of Bush's major cabinet appointees, he certainly hasn't been the worst, and he may well have been the best. The rumor is that Ashcroft will be replaced by Larry Franklin [EDIT: That's Larry Thompson, very different person], who is not weird, and who, like Ashcroft, seems committed to running a serious, professional Justice Department and also has a bunch of political views with which I disagree. We should be so lucky as to have men like that running the rest of the government.