Arkansas Times May 18, 2001 Editorials Drug-war kingpin If dirty little wars require dirty little warriors, then U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson is an apt choice to lead the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Asa has demonstrated that he's scruple-proof, most famously as a House prosecutor in the attempted lynching of fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton, whom Hutchinson has always opposed bitterly. A man eaten up with character would have declined the assignment, knowing the duplicity of the proceeding and the depth of his own bias. We assume the Clinton impeachment is mainly what Asa is being rewarded for, although his DEA appointment may be compensation as well for having kept his mouth shut about whatever it was that went on at the Mena Airport - drugs, guns, treason? - while Asa was a U.S. attorney and the first President Bush was a fellow partisan that Asa was more interested in protecting than investigating. Thanks to Asa and judicious use of the pardoning power, George I managed to keep his skirts clean. No felony convictions, anyway. It may be too that George II wants a DEA director who's sound on the race issue, since the "war on drugs" is largely a war on black men. Here again, Asa delivers the goods. He's a graduate of Bob Jones U., the South Carolina segregationist factory, and a protege of Jim Johnson, the grand old hatemonger of Arkansas politics. As the movie ads like to say, Asa Hutchinson IS Jim Johnson, except with more looks and less humor. Clinton was dreadfully wrong on drug policy, escalating a "war" he should have been trying to end. Asa promises to be wronger. Misguided though Clinton was about drugs, he was never mean. NORML has Asa pegged right: Assuming there is such a thing as a "compassionate conservative," Asa's not it. Republican politics look livelier than usual, which displeases the party bosses. For people who profess to love competition in the marketplace and the general election, they certainly hate it in their own primaries. Both Asa and his brother, Senator Tim, are pillars of the Shiite faction of the Arkansas Republican party. State Rep. Jim Bob Duggar, who is challenging Tim in the U.S. Senate primary, is another right-wing extremist, but with a populist streak, a soft spot for the common man, that is lacking in members of the Hutchinson faction. Duggar is one of only two House members who voted against electricity deregulation, and he addresses plainly what his colleagues dodge - there's been not a shred of evidence presented that deregulation will ever benefit residential consumers. "It's all about electric companies and big industries," he says. Of course. The wingiest of all wingers in the Republican primary may be Jackson T. "Steve" Stephens of Little Rock, who's pondering a race against Gov. Mike Huckabee. Known mainly as the son of his father, Stephens is chairman of the Arkansas Policy Foundation, an association of rich heirs who resent paying taxes. Stephens finds Huckabee shamefully moderate. Next to tax avoidance, his greatest enthusiasm is phonics. Copyright �2000 Arkansas Times Inc. Please let us stay on topic and be civil. To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org OM Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
