A surreal mixup disrupted CNN programming for a few moments on
Jan. 17 when the network switched to live coverage of Colin Powell. While
the retired general appeared on the screen, the audio was the voice of Sen.
Edward Kennedy at another Senate hearing -- as the senior senator from
Massachusetts railed against John Ashcroft's record of opposing civil rights.
Suddenly, a rattled CNN anchor was apologizing for the technical
difficulty. And viewers were left to ponder the unintended juxtaposition of
media images.
We're told that the new administration has embraced the concept of
diversity based on merit, with a prime example being the choice of Powell
as secretary of state. But the most important domestic policy job is
attorney general. And the Ashcroft nomination has sparked a firestorm of
resistance for many reasons, including his racial history.
Testifying, Ashcroft did not lack for requisite sound bites: "I
believe that racism is wrong... I deplore racism and I always will." His
wording was always careful. At one point he said, "I condemn those things
that are condemnable."
Ashcroft is experienced at speaking in code while exploiting
racism for political gain. A few weeks ago, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
recalled that Ashcroft "has built a career out of opposing school
desegregation in St. Louis." Twice, as governor of Missouri, he vetoed
bills that sought to give residents of the heavily black city of St. Louis
the same access to voter registration as the mostly white residents of
surrounding suburbs.
During Ashcroft's confirmation hearing, Sen. Joseph Biden of
Delaware raised the issue of his interview with Southern Partisan magazine.
That publication is so favorable toward the days of slavery that it has
sold a T-shirt bearing a picture of Abraham Lincoln accompanied by the
Latin words of his assassin, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" -- "Thus Always to Tyrants."
Biden neglected to bring up the fact that Ashcroft went out of his
way to praise Southern Partisan during his 1998 interview -- when he said
that the magazine "helps set the record straight" and lauded it for
"defending Southern patriots" such as Jefferson Davis, the vehement
advocate of slavery who was president of the Confederacy.
And Biden should have asked why Ashcroft used the interview to
tell the readers of the nation's leading neo-Confederate magazine:
"Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. 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."
After Biden's somewhat inept questioning of Ashcroft on the
subject of the Southern Partisan interview, pro-Ashcroft spinners did their
best. On the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," syndicated columnist Georgie
Anne Geyer told viewers that Ashcroft was being unfairly pilloried because
of his "respect for Confederate heritage."
Fortunately, some pundits have confronted the implications of
Ashcroft's warm interview with Southern Partisan. Several columnists for
mainstream daily newspapers cut to the heart of the matter. In the New York
Daily News, Stanley Crouch noted that Southern Partisan introduced the
interview by touting Ashcroft as a "champion of states' rights and
traditional Southern values."
Crouch pointed out: "Those are code words for white supremacist
ideas about the Civil War, segregation, genetics and so on. Code is now
very important, even to those in the boggiest wilds of the far right. They,
too, know that in politics it might be best to move under camouflage until
you get where you want and can begin opening serious fire against your
enemies."
Right now, if John Ashcroft gets where he wants, he'll be moving
into the office of the attorney general of the United States.
In the Boston Globe, columnist Derrick Z. Jackson has been
eloquent about what's at stake. "The nation's top law enforcer cannot be
someone who vacillates between civil rights and Civil War fantasies,"
Jackson wrote. And he concluded: "When Ashcroft says the traditionalists
must do more, America should tremble. The nomination is so perverted, it
should follow the final path of his Confederate heroes. It should be driven
off in a scorched-earth campaign."
But John Ashcroft and his strongest allies -- on Capitol Hill and
in the news media -- are going all out for Senate approval of his
nomination. They have plans. And they're not just whistling Dixie.
Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His latest book is The Habits of
Highly Deceptive Media.
