John Ashcroft: The zealot who holds Bush's future in his hands
by Rupert Cornwell
Link to ArticleAmerica being a country dedicated to free enterprise and the pursuit of the greenback, the Pentagon's celebrated "deck of cards" identifying leading Iraqi villains has inevitably spawned a host of imitators. One of the best-selling is a set identifying the movers and shakers of Republican Washington. George Bush, of course, is the ace of spades and almost equally obviously Donald Rumsfeld, ruthless master of the mighty US war machine, is the ace of hearts.But the face on the third ranking card, the ace of diamonds, may come as a surprise. It belongs not to Colin Powell, nor even to Vice-President Dick Cheney, but to John Ashcroft: devout Christian, decent baritone, formerly a senator from Missouri and now Attorney General of the United States. For the benefit of more casual followers of American politics, Mr Ashcroft's post is a rather complicated cross between the British office of the same name and that of Home Secretary. But the truth which matters is very simple. He is among the most powerful Attorneys General of recent times, a living symbol of the sharp (some would say paranoid) rightward lurch of American politics in the aftermath of 11 September. Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative deputy Paul Wolfowitz may have plotted the foreign campaigns in Mr Bush's war on terrorism. But on the home front, John Ashcroft the paleo-conservative has been in command - the prime architect of the infamous Patriot Act rushed through by Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and which is described by his legion of critics as the gravest assault on American civil liberties since Joe McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s.But now he could have an even more direct hand in the fate of the suddenly troubled Bush presidency. The Ashcroft Justice Department is handling the investigation into precisely who at the White House leaked an undercover CIA agent's name to the press, an affair which is quickly turning into the juiciest Washington scandal since Bill Clinton left town. As Attorney General, he must decide whether or not to appoint a special outside prosecutor. Ashcroft is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. To refuse to take a step supported by 70 per cent of the public, according to one poll this week, would reek of a cover-up. But to bring in an outside prosecutor would strike at one of Mr Bush's most cherished selling points: that after eight years of Clintonian sleaze he has restored integrity and dignity to the Oval Office. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. If you have accounts on these bookmarking sites, you can post this story to share it with others.
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