John Ashcroft

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John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is the current (2001-present) Attorney General of the United States. He is noted for his strong conservative stance on many issues, as well as his deep religious convictions.

On Friday, November 5, 2004 the Chicago Tribune reported that Ashcroft would likely resign his position before Bush's second inauguration as President.

Early career

Ashcroft was born in Chicago, Illinois, where his family had moved in order to be nearer to the headquarters of the Assemblies of God church (part of the Pentecostal fundamentalist movement). He was educated in Springfield, Missouri, and at Yale University, where he graduated in 1964. He received a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1967, and briefly taught business law at Southwest Missouri State University.

He began his career in Missouri government in 1973. He was Governor of Missouri from 1985 to 1993. In 1994 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri, where he became a leading opponent of the Clinton Administration's Clipper encryption restrictions. He ran for reelection in 2000 against then-Governor Mel Carnahan, who died in an airplane crash about two weeks before the election. Due to Missouri state election laws, Carnahan's name could not be removed from the ballot, and his wife, Jean Carnahan, announced that she would serve in her husband's place should he be elected. Carnahan won the election, and it was widely reported that John Ashcroft was "defeated by a dead man", as Mel Carnahan's name remained on the ballot. Others contended, however, that Jean Carnahan may have won the election because of a "sympathy vote" for her late husband. Despite his defeat, Ashcroft was nominated as U.S. Attorney General by president-elect George W. Bush in December 2000. There was some contention, but Ashcroft was eventually confirmed by the Senate.

Attorney General

Ashcroft is noted for having taken offense at the partially nude statues of Liberty and Justice in a meeting room where he held press conferences. He ordered the statues covered with multi-thousand-dollar curtains; it has been said that this action was taken because he felt that reporters were photographing the statues to make fun of his church's opposition to pornography. Ashcroft denied these allegations.

Ashcroft is considered a leading member of the Christian right wing of the Republican Party and is one of the highest-ranked representatives of that group in the Bush Administration. As a devout Pentacostalist, he shuns such activities as dancing and alcohol consumption. Ashcroft's religious beliefs have led commentators, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), to question his ability to effectively enforce certain laws, especially those pertaining to abortion. Ashcroft maintained that he will enforce laws whether he agrees with them or not.

In July 2002, Ashcroft proposed the creation of Operation TIPS, a domestic program in which workers and government employees would inform law enforcement agencies about suspicious behavior they encounter while performing their duties. The program was widely criticized in the media as an encroachment upon the First and Fourth Amendments, and the United States Postal Service balked at the program, refusing outright to participate. Ashcroft defended the program as a necessary component of the ongoing War on Terrorism, but the proposal was eventually abandoned.

Ashcroft's opponents and critics accuse him of Big Brotherism, and have often claimed that he uses the threat of terrorism as justification for unnecessarily restricting civil liberties. Some coined the pejorative term Ashcroftism (often seen as an adjective: Ashcroftian) to refer to ideas or policies alleged to be similar to those of Ashcroft, and refer to him by sarcastic "titles", such as "Witchfinder General" Ashcroft and "Grand Inquisitor Ashcroft" (both suggesting religious persecution of innocents), or "Reichsminister Ashcroft" (referring to Nazi oppression).

War on Drugs

Ashcroft is an enthusiastic advocate of the War on Drugs. In 2003, he and the acting DEA Administrator, John B. Brown, announced a series of indictments resulting from two nationwide investigations code-named Operation Pipe Dreams and Operation Headhunter. The investigations targeted businesses selling drug paraphernalia, mostly marijuana pipes and bongs, under a little-used statute (Title 21, Section 863(a) of the U.S. Code). Counterculture icon Tommy Chong was one of those charged, for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass/Nice Dreams, a company started by his son Paris. Most of the 55 individuals charged as a result of the operations were sentenced to fines and home detentions; Chong, however, was sentenced to 9 months in a federal prison, forfeiture of $103,000, and a year of probation. While the DOJ denied that Chong was treated any differently from the other defendants, many felt that he was made an example of by the government.

Ashcroft's tough-on-marijuana stance dates back to his tenure as a Senator, when he successfully pushed for stricter federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses. He continued this stance as the Governor of Missouri, favoring a drug control policy that focused law enforcement efforts on casual drug users.

In 1992, while Ashcroft was Governor of Missouri, his nephews Alex and Adam Ashcroft and Alex's housemate Kevin Sheeley were arrested and charged with production and possession of marijuana. A raid uncovered 60 marijuana plants, with lighting, irrigation, and security systems, in a basement crawlspace. While the production of more than 50 plants usually results in a federal charge and mandatory jail time, 25-year-old Alex Ashcroft was prosecuted on a state charge and received 3 years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Kevin Sheeley was not convicted, and his record was sealed; Adam Ashcroft, who did not live in the house, was never prosecuted. Though Alex Ashcroft tested positive for marijuana in his first probation-mandated drug test, no further actions were taken against him. The parents of Alex and Adam have denied that the young men received a lenient treatment as a result of their connection to the governor.

The former senator famously once boasted of his conservatism, saying that there are two things you find in the middle of the road: "a moderate and a dead skunk", adding that he did not wish to be either.

Personal quotes

• "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you." [1]

• "We need the law to make it clear that it's as much a conspiracy to aid and assist the terrorists, to join them for fighting purposes as it is to carry them a lunch or to provide them with a weapon" [2]

• "[Southern Partisan] helps set the record straight. [It's] got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like Lee, Jackson and Davis...We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda."[3]

• "Let the eagles soar, like she's never soared before, from rocky coast to golden shores, Let the mighty eagle soar." [4]

External links

• Ashcroft's homepage at the Department of Justice
• CNN video of John Ashcroft singing his self-composed paean Let the Eagle Soar at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in February 2002:
  • Windows Media Player

The rendition was satirically featured in Michael Moore's 2004 movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

Preceded by: Christopher S. Bond

Governor of Missouri

Succeeded by: Mel Carnahan

Preceded by: Janet Reno

Attorney General of the United States

Succeeded by: Incumbent