'Conservative' and 'Racist': The Ashcroft nomination and the Left's foulest card.(Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft)

'No one is suggesting he's a racist," commentator Mark Shields recently remarked of attorney general-designee John Ashcroft. In this, he was repeating a familiar liberal line. But his comment needs to be carefully parsed, because Shields wasn't using "no one" in the strict sense-meaning "no one"-but in the loose sense, meaning, "Some people actually are calling him a racist." Rep. Maxine Waters has said, "Senator Ashcroft acts like a racist, walks like a racist, and talks like a racist." Of the ex-senator's opposition to Judge Ronnie White-rejected for a seat on the federal bench by Senate Republicans, led by Ashcroft-Jesse Jackson complained, "It was an appeal to race." Sen. Pat Leahy suggested the White controversy meant that we had "reverted to a time in [our] history when there was a color test on nominations."

That's hardly "no one." But Mark Shields's remark is noteworthy not just because it is inaccurate. It is part of an odd liberal two-step in the fight over Ashcroft's confirmation: Race is not the issue, or so we're told; and at the same time, it's one of the chief issues. No one can question Ashcroft's integrity, his more responsible critics concede; but his nomination should be rejected anyway, partly because he's being called a racist by certain less responsible critics. Indeed, what is at stake in this nomination is an attempt to define racism down, to institute in public life a new racial McCarthyism that would disqualify any public official who is merely accused of racism, and render conservatism itself a form of de facto racism.

New York senator Chuck Schumer has allowed he doesn't think Ashcroft is a racist, "but at certain instances, I don't think he's shown enough sensitivity toward America's long and troubled history with race." Activist Ralph Neas goes further: "We do not contend that he is a racist. That's a straw man erected by his supporters." Actually, it is a straw man erected by his detractors-but that is a mere quibble. Neas finds Ashcroft unsuitable because of his "extraordinary racial insensitivity."

There is a reason "insensitivity" became the most famous watchword of campus political correctness. It was useful to campus liberals because its elasticity served to make anyone potentially guilty of it. "Racism" is a word with a fairly precise meaning-animus against individuals or groups based on race. The charge of racism is largely falsifiable, in that it can be evaluated in fairly objective terms (hence, its inconvenience to Ashcroft's critics-even Pat Leahy must admit he never heard Ashcroft "make a racist comment"). "Insensitivity," in contrast, is more subjective; it's a moving target that doesn't depend on any identifiable attitude on the part of the offender, but on the sensibilities of those taking offense.

In the case of John Ashcroft, of course, it is black-activist groups ("civil-rights groups" is a misnomer) that are offended. It is on the authority of their professed outrage or fear that the likes of Wall Street Journal columnist Al Hunt-chary of calling Ashcroft a racist himself-hang their anti-Ashcroft case. Watch the two-step at work: "No one should doubt Mr. Ashcroft's sincerity [i.e., by any objective standard, he's not a racist]," Hunt writes. "But neither should anyone doubt that collectively, to many African-Americans, [his] positions suggest an insensitivity, or even hostility."

Now, if it's true that Ashcroft is a man of integrity, the worries of black groups should be dismissed as unfounded or trumped up. If, on the other hand, black groups are right that he is "hostile" to blacks, no one should be saying that he is a man of integrity. Both cannot be true. But Hunt and other Ashcroft critics square the circle by making the very fact that Ashcroft is being called a bigot-regardless of the merits of the charge-among the most damning counts against him. As Time's Jack E. White summed up the case, "Ashcroft has consistently appealed to the right-wing of his party, even when his approach risked appearing racist" (emphasis added).

"The appearance of impropriety" is a standard Washington weasel phrase used to accuse people of corruption when there is no evidence of it. It, like "insensitivity," has the advantage of being non-falsifiable. You may be able to prove that you didn't take a bribe, but how can you ever prove that you didn't "create an appearance" of doing so? Jack White's "appearance of racism"-and especially his "risk of the appearance . . ."-are similar to "the appearance of impropriety." So Ashcroft's problem isn't that, say, his Bob Jones degree or Southern Partisan interview actually demonstrates that he is a bigot, but that he created an opportunity for black groups to call him one-hence he "risked appearing" racist.