By John Burl Smith

Turnout 75 %: Former Sen. John Ashcroft does not have to fear being exposed as a racists during his confirmation hearing. A member of the Senate's good ol' boys club, Ashcroft represents the kind of "say anything/do anything" power cult running America today. The best judges of the kind of public servant John Ashcroft will prove to be, are the voters in the state he represented, Missouri. Overwhelmingly, those most adversely affected by his extreme conservative states' rights anti-personal freedom politics in Missouri were black. They feared his right wing Christian positions so much that they elected a dead man -Mel Carnahan- rather than vote for Ashcroft.

For the first time in modern American elections, more blacks than whites in a state went to the polls in order to defeat Ashcroft. This alone shows the kind of divisively polarizing influence he is within his home state and will be as Attorney General. His Senate buddies will not ask him the hard questions on race, religion and his Confederate states' rights beliefs. However, these are questions that should be posed so we all know the kind of man President-select Bush wants as the chief law enforcement official in the land. First, how does judicial strict construction of the Constitution differ from the belief that Article I Section 2 of the Constitution - the 3/5 Compromise- is the foundation of states' rights? Further, what is Ashcroft's position on states' righters insistence that the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments did not repeal the 3/5ths or Great Compromise, therefore these amendments are unconstitutional? Does Ashcroft accept the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate but equal is inherently unequal," therefore segregation violated slave descendants' rights to "equal protection?" Moreover, since race was the sole basis used to enslave and segregate blacks, how does Ashcroft plan to guarantee blacks "equal protection," if the standards or procedures employed to remedy past discrimination do not take race into account? And finally, explain at what point does he believe blacks were provided with sufficient access to America's institutions that they enjoy a level playing field today, and if he does not feel blacks have a level playing field, to what does he attribute their lack of access?

Missouri voters saw Ashcroft's visit to Bob Jones University as confirmation of his willingness to support the neo-Confederate movement attempting to re-segregate blacks in America. The people of Missouri have shown the country the true reflection of a man that served them well more than twenty years, and the people who know him best rejected him in favor of a dead man. This reality cannot be glossed over as partisan politics because he ran for re-election and was rejected on the basis of his record. If George W. Bush, Jr.'s agenda is to further divide America, then John Ashcroft is the perfect choice for attorney general.

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