The Senate is obliged to "advise and consent" to the appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general because, absent compelling disqualification and if for no other reason, he is the choice of the man voters chose to be president.

Monday, January 15, 2001

The Senate is obliged to "advise and consent" to the appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general because, absent compelling disqualification and if for no other reason, he is the choice of the man voters chose to be president.

If not Ashcroft, who? Gadfly Jesse Jackson? Ambitious Hillary Clinton? Unemployed Al Gore? This is ludicrous. We voters decided we would rather have George W. Bush as president than Buchanan, Nader or Gore. This means we would rather have cabinet members ideologically attuned and politically compatible with Bush than those who would please the losers. We elected conservatives as president and vice president and, thereby, invite conservatives to the cabinet.

Of course those protesting Ashcroft’s nomination do not expect Bush to appoint another kind of person. It is the game played by sore losers – Republicans and conservatives having already had their turn at this game. Bush won the Florida electoral votes, but Gore and allies weren’t willing to accept the legal reality. The highest court in the land confirmed Bush had, but they still looked for other ways to get what obsessed them.

If their man can’t be president, then they can at least work to make the actual president weak and ineffective by allowing him only the weakest and most ineffective cabinet members possible. That would be the logical result of the campaign begun with Linda Chavez.

President-elect Bush is taking almost unprecedented strides toward putting together an administration that is far more bipartisan than his predecessors. What Democrats are now trying to do to his cabinet nominations contradicts that worthy effort and is counterproductive to any possibility of bipartisanship. Indeed, it’s hypocrisy.

As a rule, highest priorities are most desirable. Each time a president is forced to dip to yet a lower level, the eventual appointee would be the least qualified of all who had been available. Even when the best person is allowed, the other party works to make performance of duty as difficult-if not impossible – as possible. All this present foolishness is cutting Republican noses off despite the nation’s face. The federal government should be ineffective and non-productive for four full years just so the Democrats can get back into power. (I again allow that such self-serving, irresponsible political strategy is not peculiar to Democrats, but is a disgraceful trait of partisan politics.)

The early news coverage of Ashcroft reported accurately that he is well experienced as a state attorney general, governor, and senator and that there has never been as much as a hint of scandal in any phase of his public service. The worst that could be said is he doesn’t smoke, drink, or dance – and that he actually practices the religion he professes. What a nurd! Criminals, and a lot of politicians, just might be uncomfortable around him, and that wouldn’t be politically correct.

They accuse him of being racist, because he once opposed a state judge for a federal bench after the judge bent over backward to find a way to excuse a multiple murderer. That the judge happens to be black was as much beside the point as Al Sharpton is trying to make it the point retroactively. The racist is Al Sharpton, not John Ashcroft.

His opposition (and that of many others) to the Clinton appointment of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg was not the simple fact that Hormel is gay but that he flaunts his homosexuality. How can he effectively represent us to this small country that almost unanimously objects to and rejects homosexuality?

Yes, Ashcroft sustains moral objection, but he has never acted upon his personal belief to discriminate. The gay political activist groups who paint him as their equivalent to the anti-Christ can point to no malfeasance in office. What they attempt, however, is nothing less than to deny this American freedom of thought and speech. In America we do not discriminate on the basis of belief.

When it comes to any president’s cabinet, the Constitution requires and allows that the Senate only "advise and consent." If the nominee can be shown to be disqualified, the Senate ought to advise against. Absent clear and compelling evidence of disqualification, it can but confirm the specific choice of the president chosen by voters. John Ashcroft is that man this time. Sens. Wellstone and Dayton are obliged to support his confirmation.

Wallace Alcorn’s column appears Mondays