NAKED RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY FAILS TO DERAIL ASHCROFT

No appointment by this president could possibly have sent a better signal than the selection of former U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft for attorney general. For sheer gutsiness, as evidenced by the hysterical outcry it has prompted on the left, it is unsurpassed.

The left-liberal media-Democratic coalition has come very close to imposing a religious test for holding office. You might have thought we had banished religious tests for holding high office 40 years ago, with the election of the first Roman Catholic president. You would be wrong.

* Here is how columnist Charles Krauthammer, an observant Jew, saw the irony:

"A senator is nominated for high office. He's been re-elected many times statewide. He has served admirably as his state's attorney general. He is devout, speaking openly and proudly about his religious faith. He emphasizes the critical role of religion in underpinning both morality and constitutional self-government. He speaks passionately about how his politics are shaped by his deeply held religious beliefs.

"Now: If the name is Lieberman and he is Jewish, his nomination evokes celebration. If his name is Ashcroft and he is Christian, his nomination evokes a hue and cry about 'divisiveness' and mobilizes a wall-to-wall liberal coalition to defeat him."

* "In a USA Today op-ed, columnist Tony Mauro writes: 'If Ashcroft's view that 'we have no king but Jesus' leads him to think that ours is a Christian nation, or that only Christians have the right answers to the nation's problems, then indeed his vision is too narrow to take the job of attorney general.'

"It is difficult to imagine Mauro asking that question if Ashcroft were Catholic or Jewish. Let's see how he might formulate it: 'Can a profoundly Catholic person be attorney general? Can a committed Jewish person be attorney general?' We wonder if the editors of USA Today would entertain these sorts of doubts." -- From "Bigots vs. Ashcroft" by John Miller and Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in National Review.

* "The strategy of the clique that wants political war in Washington, and that provides Kennedy with his inflammatory index cards, is to rattle or infuriate the nominee, causing him to say something that can be used against him. Any bait will do ... .

"Ashcroft won't play their game. ... His unflappability in the face of the most strident provocation is driving the old, liberal Bork Brigade up the wall. His strategy is taken from Proverbs 1:15: -A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.'" -- From "The Unflappable Man," on the Ashcroft hearings, by New York Times columnist William Safire.

* "It's OK for liberals like Teddy Kennedy to oppose the judicial nomination of a black such as Clarence Thomas. But if a conservative such as John Ashcroft opposes a black jurist, he is the Great White Bigot." -- Conservative African-American columnist Larry Elder.

One caveat to the final quote above: In his testimony Judge Ronnie White specifically disavowed the racism allegation against Ashcroft, as indeed he refused even to recommend, when asked, that Ashcroft be rejected by the committee, or the Senate. On the whole, one concludes that White's testimony was a dignified performance, which is far more than we can say for senators Kennedy, et al.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.