-Caveat Lector-
Speaking of lies, just read on below- for a WHOLE pack of them.
-------------------------------------
On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:45:44 EST William Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
> http://www.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/01/30/ashcroft/index.html
>
>
> The artful dodger
> John Ashcroft's nose is growing faster than Pinocchio's during his
> Senate
> confirmation hearings. As attorney general, will he be as evasive
> with the
> truth?
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Joe Conason
> Jan. 30, 2001 | Of all the perfectly sound reasons to oppose <A
> HREF="http://www.salon.com/directory/topics/john_ashcroft/">John
> Ashcroft's</A>
> nomination -- and perhaps to mount a filibuster against him, now
> that his
> confirmation appears likely -- the most compelling is that he didn't
> tell the
> truth to the United States Senate.
> In deference to the presidential prerogative, many senators may feel
> they
> should approve Ashcroft despite his ideological extremism; others
> may think
> they owe a former colleague the benefit of the doubt when he
> promises to
> enforce the law impartially. But how are they to believe that
> pledge, or
> expect the majority of skeptical Americans to trust Ashcroft, after
> he
> prevaricated so blatantly during his own testimony under oath?
> Two years ago, the Senate conducted an <A
> HREF="http://www.salon.com/directory/topics/impeachment/">impeachment
> trial</A> against a president
> who had lied about personal matters in a private lawsuit. Before <A
> HREF="http://www.salon.com/directory/topics/bill_clinton/">President
> Clinton</A> was finally acquitted because the majority felt his
> offenses were not
> impeachable, dozens of Republicans declared that such lying was
> unacceptable
> in the nation's chief magistrate. Why then is similar conduct now
> deemed
> acceptable in a candidate for the nation's highest law enforcement
> position?
> And why would the Senate vouchsafe the responsibilities of that
> office to a
> man who has already mocked its trust?
> The senators who vote to confirm his nomination this week will laud
> Ashcroft
> as a public servant of unblemished integrity, and such praise may be
> uttered
> by them in full sincerity. But to any senator who fulfills his or
> her own
> obligation to examine the hearing record completely and
> dispassionately,
> Ashcroft's dishonesty will be too obvious to be ignored.
> Almost nobody believes his evasive answers about the <A
> HREF="http://www.salon.com/news/1998/04/10news.html">ambassadorial
> nomination
> of James Hormel,</A> for instance. Rather than admit forthrightly
> that he had
> blocked Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg because the Clinton
> nominee would
> have been the nation's first openly gay envoy, Ashcroft chose to
> make vague
> claims about Hormel's "entire record," adding ominously that Hormel
> had
> "recruited" him to the University of Chicago. Few falsehoods more
> obvious
> than that one have ever been told under oath in a Senate hearing.
> Ashcroft
> also testified untruthfully about the substance of the St. Louis
> desegregation case. Instead of admitting that he <A
>
HREF="http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/16/hearings/">opposed
> integration,</A> which
> he clearly did, the former Missouri attorney general insisted that
> he was
> merely defending his state government from an overreaching federal
> judge.
> That may be a matter of opinion, but it left the clear impression
> back then
> of a politician stirring racial conflict for personal advancement.
> But when Ashcroft claimed repeatedly in the hearings that "the state
> had not
> been found really guilty of anything" in the St. Louis court case,
> he knew
> that answer was wholly false. Having appealed the matter all the way
> to the
> Supreme Court and lost, he can't have forgotten that the state of
> Missouri
> was held responsible by the courts for its long history of
> maintaining
> segregrated schools in St. Louis and its suburbs.
> Ashcroft lied confidently during the hearings about matters large
> and small,
> presumably relying on the gullibility of his former colleagues.
> Among the
> more disturbing instances was his attempted explanation of the
> now-notorious
> interview he gave in 1998 to the <A
>
HREF="http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/03/partisan/">Souther
n
> Partisan,</A> an organ of the
> neo-Confederate movement.
> On Jan. 17, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., engaged Ashcroft in a long,
> rambling
> discourse about the Southern Partisan's racial and ethnic bias and
> its dogged
> defense of slavery and "states' rights." Mostly Biden seemed to be
> talking to
> hear the sound of his own voice, as he often does in hearings, but
> Ashcroft
> eventually had a chance to respond to Biden's scolding.
> "I don't know if I've ever read the magazine or seen it," he said,
> claiming
> that he had merely answered a few questions in a telephone
> interview. "And I
> regret that speaking to them is being used to imply that I agree
> with their
> views." Moments later he added, "I probably should do more due
> diligence on
> [Southern Partisan]. I know they've been accused of being racist."
> Unfortunately, Biden was ill-prepared to press Ashcroft any further.
> Otherwise he might have asked how Ashcroft could claim he didn't
> know about
> the Southern Partisan's content when he had told the editor who
> interviewed
> him that "your magazine ... helps set the record straight. You've
> got a
> heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like Lee,
> Jackson and
> Davis." Certainly in that text, whose accuracy Ashcroft has never
> denied, he
> sounds like a fan who is quite familiar with the magazine's content.
> Maybe he was just giving a few strokes to a desirable white
> supremacist
> voting bloc. Yet even if Ashcroft was uninformed about the Southern
> Partisan's seamier aspects when he spoke with the magazine in 1998,
> it is
> impossible to believe that he hasn't learned a great deal more about
> the
> magazine since then.
> That was what he claimed later the same day, however, when he gave
> the
> following pious answer to a softball question from Kansas Republican
> Sam
> Brownback: "I don't even want to do an interview with a magazine
> that in any
> way promotes slavery. I don't. That's not my -- I had no
> understanding that
> that was the case about the magazine. I don't know if that is the
> case, but
> if it is, I repudiate it."
> For Ashcroft to say he "doesn't know" whether the Southern Partisan
> promotes
> slavery is simply unbelievable. He has been coping with the
> political fallout
> from that interview for most of the past two years. It became a
> major issue
> in his unsuccessful race for reelection to the Senate; it was the
> subject of
> citizen petitions, extensive media coverage, angry newspaper
> editorials and
> even local legislative resolutions in 1999 and 2000. Throughout that
> period
> the magazine's racist content was exposed over and over again, while
> Ashcroft
> and his spokesmen attempted to deflect criticism of the interview.
> After such
> hot and heavy controversy in Missouri, he must be painfully aware by
> now of
> the Southern Partisan's poisonous content. Biden's questioning was
> inept and
> poorly informed, but that didn't excuse Ashcroft from giving an
> honest
> response, which he chose not to do.
> Let us just hope that if his nomination is approved, no senator
> pretends to
> be surprised when Attorney General Ashcroft misleads the Congress or
> reneges
> on an important promise. They have been duly warned, at the very
> beginning,
> by his own flawed testimony.
>
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