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Even by Washington's standards, the ability of John Ashcroft to
reinvent himself has been a wonder to behold. Just a year ago, squeaking
through Senate confirmation as attorney general, Ashcroft found himself
shadowed by his own praise for leaders of the Confederacy. Now he's able
to tout himself as a disciple of Martin Luther King Jr.
It's quite a scam, and Ashcroft couldn't have pulled it off without
major help from news media. Mainstream journalists have declined to
subject the attorney general to the most elementary comparisons between
present and past stances on race-related issues.
With scant challenge from journalists, Ashcroft is presenting
himself as someone with a fervent commitment to racial equality. His
lofty pronouncements -- floating like overinflated beach balls in dire
need of sharp pins -- are held aloft by the prevailing media winds.
To be sure, when it comes to the undermining of civil liberties
since mid-September, the attorney general has faced appreciable criticism
from commentators. When the president takes aim at the Bill of Rights, a
flak-catcher at the Justice Department comes in handy. Several weeks ago,
an unnamed White House adviser explained to a New York Times reporter
that Ashcroft "is a willing lightning rod to take the heat off the
president on these very difficult criminal justice decisions."
But in other respects, Ashcroft is getting a pass from journalists.
When he presided at a recent Justice Department event commemorating King,
much of his speech aired live on CNN. "I'm personally privileged and we
are all privileged to follow in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's
footsteps in defending freedom and ensuring justice," Ashcroft
proclaimed. Viewers didn't get a clue about Ashcroft's long record of
opposition to civil rights -- and his publicly expressed affection for
the Confederacy.
In early December, referring to "American Taliban" John Walker, the
attorney general declared: "History has not looked kindly upon those who
have forsaken their countries to go and fight against their countries,
especially with organizations that have totally disrespected the rights
of individuals."
Such a description would certainly apply to the Confederacy and its
war effort for the preservation of slavery. So, why has Ashcroft gone out
of his way to say that he looks kindly upon -- and even venerates --
Confederate leaders?
In 1998, Ashcroft was interviewed by the quarterly Southern
Partisan -- which, according to The New Republic, "serves as the leading
journal of the neo-Confederacy movement" and has published "a gumbo of
racist apologias" for two decades.
Sen. Ashcroft was full of praise for Southern Partisan -- and for
leaders committed to slavery at the time of the Civil War. "Your magazine
also helps set the record straight," he said. "You've got a heritage of
doing that, of defending Southern patriots like (Robert E.) Lee,
(Stonewall) Jackson and (Jefferson) Davis. 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."
When Ashcroft went to the crash site of United Flight 93 in
Pennsylvania on Sept. 20, his stirring words reached millions via
national television and radio: "It is impossible to stand in a field in
Pennsylvania, at the site of heroic devotion and activity, without
thinking of the words of Abraham Lincoln, who spoke 140 years ago at
Gettysburg."
What would we say about someone who gushed with adulatory rhetoric
about Winston Churchill and the heroism at Normandy just a few years
after fervently insisting that Nazis like Gen. Erwin Rommel did not have
a "perverted agenda"?
Now that Ashcroft has gotten into a groove of speaking reverentially
about Lincoln and claiming to walk in the footsteps of Martin Luther
King, some media skepticism is overdue. But these days, major news
outlets seem content to help Ashcroft reinvent himself by leaving
unmentioned some of his career's relevant milestones -- as recent as May
1999, when Ashcroft gave the commencement address and accepted an
honorary degree at Bob Jones University, widely known for its racial and
religious bigotry.
As governor of Missouri, in 1988 and again in 1989, Ashcroft vetoed
measures passed overwhelmingly by the state legislature that sought to
make it possible for volunteer deputy registrars from nonpartisan
organizations to engage in voter registration in the city of St. Louis,
which was about 50 percent black at the time. The bills were efforts to
equalize access to voter registration by ending policies that made
registering to vote much more difficult for the city's residents than for
those in the mainly white suburbs.
It's true that Ashcroft has walked in historic footsteps of civil
rights struggles. But those footsteps mostly belonged to George Wallace.
Not Martin Luther King. Too bad so many journalists haven't noticed -- or
prefer to dispense with history.
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Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."
His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.
