by Robyn Blumner

"Coy" is the best way to describe Attorney General John Ashcroft's performance at his Senate confirmation hearing in January.

The former one-term senator from Missouri, whose religion forbids him from smoking, drinking or dancing, arabesqued around his record as an opponent of school desegregation, an avowed gay-basher, a staunch opponent of abortion rights, and someone who has so little respect for the U.S. Supreme Court that he called the more liberal members and one middle-of-the-roader "five ruffians in robes."

For those senators on the Judiciary Committee who were skeptical of his asserted metamorphosis, Ashcroft promised -- not promised, swore -- that he would not allow his personal beliefs to interfere with the objective enforcement of the law.

"I pledge to you that strict enforcement of the rule of law will be the cornerstone of justice," Ashcroft told the committee. "As a man of faith, I take my word and my integrity seriously. So when I swear to uphold the law, I will keep my oath, so help me God."

But what Ashcroft failed to mention was the asterisk in his head -- that to a great extent the attorney general decides what the rule of law is and how it is interpreted. As Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in opposing Ashcroft for the post: "While the Supreme Court has the last word in what our law means, the attorney general, more importantly, has the first word."

Or, as Ashcroft might think of it: the word.

Take, for instance, Ashcroft's recent decision to interfere with Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law -- a voter-passed initiative that allows terminally ill patients who are fully mentally competent to have a doctor prescribe medicine that allows them to choose a death with dignity. Until he was stopped by court injunction, Ashcroft had threatened any doctor who assists patients in this way with the revocation of prescription-writing privileges.

It's funny. Before becoming attorney general, Ashcroft made the federal government's intrusion into "state's rights" a frequent target of attack. After the Supreme Court struck down an initiative passed by Arkansas voters to impose term limits for congressional seats, Ashcroft said the justices "stole the right of self-determination from the people." But the long reach of the federal government didn't bother him a whit when the power was in his hands and he could use it to further a religious conservative agenda.

Could there also be a connection between Ashcroft's legendary anti-abortion activism and his wholesale disinterest in the hundreds of anthrax threat letters (so far all hoaxes) received by abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices since Sept. 11? Despite requests by these groups for a personal meeting or a public statement expressing concern for abortion-clinic workers, Ashcroft has offered neither -- a quintessential deafening silence.

And where is Ashcroft's "so help me God" commitment to the rule of law for the 1,200 or so people the Justice Department has detained since the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks? Those people have disappeared into a justice system that is refusing to account for them. Last month, seven members of Congress sent Ashcroft a letter asking basic questions of constitutional import, such as the names of the people being held and the charges against them. But even after a follow-up letter, Ashcroft has not furnished any answers.

His rule of law must include not being accountable to Congress.

Now comes the announcement of FBI sweeps. Ashcroft has ordered the questioning of 5,000 immigrant men between the ages of 18 and 33 from Middle Eastern nations -- men from places where the idea of being interrogated by police is terrorizing.

During the confirmation hearing, Ashcroft claimed to be appalled by the specter of racial profiling. "No American should fear being stopped by police just because of skin color," he declared.

Now we know that the rest of the thought was: "but if you're brown and from another country, start shaking."

It is actually hard to keep up with the almost daily constitutional transgressions that are passing as policy in the Justice Department. One day a summary rule is announced that the attorney general, at his sole discretion, will allow the monitoring of certain attorney-client conversations -- trouncing the Sixth Amendment's guarantees of a right to counsel. The next, the department renews efforts to jail immigrants on secret evidence.

The rule of law has become the rule of Ashcroft. And the Justice Department is a misnomer once again.

© Copyright 2001 Star Tribune

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