A Battle, and an Opportunity: Make a stand with Ashcroft.(Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft)

There is a profound culture war being waged in our nation. Sometimes we fight about race, sometimes about religion, and often about political ideology. Navigating the battlefields of these issues, one by one, is always a dangerous task. But there is no terrain in America more treacherous than the three-way intersection of race, religion, and political ideology.

With the nomination of John Ashcroft, George W. Bush has boldly brought the nation to this intersection. Ashcroft is a political conservative, a Christian, and a man who believes that, as President John Kennedy put it, "race has no place in American life or law." At another time and another place in our history, the nomination of Ashcroft would not have stirred passions or controversy. What causes such fear and animosity now? Why is Ashcroft portrayed as a "right-wing extremist," "anti-woman," and a "racist bigot"? And what are the consequences if this man is not confirmed?

From our inception, the premise that America is a "God-fearing" nation has been universally embraced. Just a few short weeks ago, we were not terribly disturbed when a man running for vice president, on the Democratic ticket, invoked the name of God at virtually every campaign stop. Now, abortion is a very difficult issue for most Americans. As is usually the case, reasonable people can disagree, and we need not dismiss those on either side as "extremists." Many Americans draw on religion in figuring out what to believe about abortion. All of this is by way of saying that those who oppose abortion represent a significant and respectable segment of the American public. They are not "right-wing zealots outside the mainstream," as Ashcroft's opponents seek to portray him.

George W. Bush ran as "a uniter, not a divider"-but he could not have made a nomination more certain to highlight America's culture war, and to focus attention on the major participants in this war, than that of John Ashcroft to the position of attorney general. If Ashcroft had been named to any other position, he would have endured a fair amount of opposition because of his religious convictions and political ideology. But attorney general has historically been viewed as the race domain, and Ashcroft's appointment to that post was bound to cause an explosion. Here is what the fight is all about.

On one side are those guided by the strict construction of the Constitution, and who still find relevance and true meaning in the Declaration of Independence. They are loosely defined as "conservatives." On the other side is the "by-any-means-necessary" (BAMN) crowd, a slice of our population that liberally interprets the Constitution, and for whom anything goes, for whom principles can be compromised or sacrificed in order to achieve some centralized, socially engineered result.

The charge against Ashcroft that transcends all others is that he is a racist. In America, this is the trump card. All by itself, it has the power to wreak destruction. Bush's political enemies understand ideological warfare, and they know that branding someone with an "R" puts that individual on the defensive, even if there is no substance to the charge. Throw in the fear that the person will shut down abortion clinics and introduce God into the affairs of government, and you have effectively created a political monster with a bull's-eye on his back.

Again, the Justice Department historically has been considered the domain of those who want the federal government to be "creative" and activist in defining and pursuing a legal strategy for problems relating to race. Beginning with the 1960s civil-rights movement, there has been an expectation that the department would be the agent of change and activism. As we saw in the Clinton administration, Justice has been guided less by law than by notions of "equity" and "social justice."