Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2002
Source: Rocky Mount Telegram, The (NC)
Copyright: 2002 Cox Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1751
Author: Gene Metrick
Note: Gene Metrick is a senior staff writer and copy editor for the Rocky 
Mount Telegram.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/ashcroft.htm (Ashcroft, John)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

FEELING ASHCROFT'S PAIN

All right, somebody's gotta just come right out and say it.

I'm worried about U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

First of all, let me state unequivocally that I think all of the Evil Ones 
who played a part in the perpetration of the dastardly Sept. 11 terrorist 
attacks must be tracked down to the ends of the Earth and brought to 
justice in some way - preferably one that ends up requiring an autopsy 
being performed somewhere.

That doesn't mean I can't wonder about our country's top law enforcement 
officer.

I admit that I was one of the folks who was suggesting back in January 2001 
that some of this guy's more conservative religious views placed him just a 
tad too far outside the mainstream thought of most Americans to merit his 
nomination by an incoming president who was promising to unite a polarized 
country, which was still bitterly divided by the agony that was the 2000 
election.

But this is a diverse country, after all - and as his defenders steadfastly 
maintained, just because a person may subscribe to a few ideas that might 
be perceived by some as extreme, that shouldn't automatically disqualify 
him or her from public service.

Even if you have to pretend that Bill Clinton was never president, you have 
to admit that this point is most assuredly true.

So it didn't help any when soon after his appointment, Ashcroft seemed to 
confirm every liberal's worst fears with the morning prayer sessions he was 
holding at the office. But starting the day off with some voluntary prayer 
in the work place seems positively mainstream after recent revelations from 
Justice Department employees that they have been encouraged to participate 
in a morning singing of some dorky song the attorney general wrote.

And just as the alarms raised over those morning prayer sessions had faded 
away, lingering consternation over the attorney general soon turned to 
near-hysteria in some quarters during the post-Sept. 11 period, when 
Ashcroft seemingly set aside his conservative's love of individual 
liberties as he sought to sidestep the Bill of Rights at every turn in his 
overzealous efforts to combat domestic terrorist threats, both real and 
perceived.

But now, it seems the attorney general really is losing his cool - although 
quite possibly with good reason.

Ashcroft reportedly was infuriated last week when it came to light that the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service recently sent approved student visas 
to a Florida flight school for two of the terrorists from the airliners 
that were crashed into the World Trade Center.

Now this may sound like it has more than just a glimmer of sour-grapes 
Monday-morning quarterbacking, but it seems to me that the AG may be 
spreading himself a little too thin. He has devoted a lot of time to 
covering up breasts on statues, fighting popularly enacted 
physician-assisted suicide laws in Oregon and worrying about some 
terminally ill people smoking marijuana in California. Instead, perhaps he 
and his staff might have tried to pay just a little bit more attention to 
what has been happening at the INS. Isn't there supposed to be a war going on?

And wasn't there supposed to have been some immediate in-depth review of 
that agency in the aftermath of 9/11 anyway? Weren't we being assured back 
then that every even remotely Arabic-sounding name in their files was 
getting flagged and tracked down somehow?

I wonder how Khalid Qassm feels about all of this? A Palestinian immigrant 
who owns a Dairy Queen in Rocky Mount, N.C., Qassm's life became ensnared 
in the clutches of the federal government pretty quickly once it was 
noticed that he had taken some flight lessons at an area airport in August. 
So while the INS was dutifully making sure that this taxpaying businessman 
was reporting to their Charlotte office every second Tuesday of the month 
because he was living here on an expired visa, somewhere in a black-hole 
corner of that agency those Florida student visas apparently were being 
unquestionably rubber-stamped for approval.

I guess I'd be mad too, if I were John Ashcroft.
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MAP posted-by: Beth