The Taliban do not allow you to sing for your supper. Ashcroft requires that you do.
Cheers, Ken Hanly Ashcroft's eagle soars, but some see a turkey By Julian Borger in Washington Since John Ashcroft became the United States Attorney-General last year, workers at the Department of Justice have become accustomed to his daily prayer meetings, but some are now drawing the line at having to sing patriotic songs penned by their idiosyncratic boss. Mr Ashcroft, a devout Christian and a grittily determined singer, went public with one of his works last month, when he surprised an audience at a North Carolina seminary with a rendition of Let the Eagle Soar, a tribute to America's virtues, which continues: "Like she's never soared before/From rocky coast to golden shore/Let the mighty eagle soar," and so on in a similar vein for four minutes. The performance, which can be seen and heard at www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html, was accompanied only by taped music, but Mr Ashcroft's staff are complaining that printed versions of the song are being distributed at meetings so that they will be able to join in. When asked why she opposed the singalong, one department lawyer said: "Have you heard the song? It really sucks." A group of Hispanic employees at the Justice Department were recently summoned to see Mr Ashcroft, and went along hoping that their boss might be making a special effort to promote diversity in the department's higher ranks. Instead, they were asked to provide a hasty Spanish lesson to give him a few phrases to use on a foreign delegation the next day. The Hispanic staff were then handed printed copies of Let the Eagle Soar and asked for volunteers to translate it. This is not the first time Mr Ashcroft's subordinates have realised that he is unlike most politicians. Each time he has been sworn in to political office he is anointed with cooking oil (in the manner of King David, as he points out in his memoirs, Lessons from a Father to His Son). When Mr Ashcroft was in the Senate, the duty was performed by his father, a senior minister in a church specialising in speaking in tongues, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God. When he became Attorney-General, Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court justice, did the honours. In January, a pair of 3.6-metre statues in the atrium of a Justice Department building were covered by a blue curtain, on orders from Mr Ashcroft's office because the female figure, Spirit of Justice, was bare-breasted, and the body of her male partner, Majesty of Law, was insufficiently covered by his toga. The cover-up has provoked an anti-Ashcroft campaign by the singer and film star Cher, who has denounced his puritanism. She asked one newspaper: "What are we going to do next? Put shorts on the statue of David, put an 1880s bathing suit on Venus Rising and a shirt on the Venus de Milo?" The Guardian
