The Billiken's Bluff

Suffering Anti-Bushocrats likely have found some crumb of solace this week in the resignation John Ashcroft tendered to the world on Tuesday. I’m glad for them. For four years the man has served not only as our country’s attorney general but also as the left’s favorite punching bag and vilified symbol of all that is evil and unholy in America 2004. Seeing him go after the first term I imagine tastes pretty sweet to those who are in all other respects some very bitter people.

But I would be billiken-bluffing if I pretended to feel the same way as these folks about the departing AG. Fact is, if I were standing outside Ashcroft’s office when he shuffled out with a cardboard box holding the contents of his desk, I guess I would give the man a clap on the back, shake his hand, and thank him for doing a solid job. I can imagine this post won’t go over well. But damn it, Ashy John deserves some props, and I wouldn’t be doing my job as the Bluff’s resident non-AntiBushocrat if I didn’t give it to him. That’s right I said it. You done us well John!

Why this outlandish admiration for the man “everyone else” hates? Sure he’s a square – he’s the essence of square. Sponge-bob square. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t serve the American people well in one of the hardest jobs there is during one of the hardest times in history to have it. In any period, it would be a major accomplishment for the head of the Justice Department to see violent crime reach a 30-year low after declining by 27 percent during the three-year period between 2001-2003. But this is post-9/11 America, and the challenges Ashcroft has met have been remarkable. Among them was the task the president laid at his feet after the terrorist attack when he told him, "Don't let this happen again."

To the great benefit of his country, Ashcroft lived up to that challenge. That we have not been hit again is one testament to the success the Justice Department working under his leadership and with other agencies has had in disrupting terrorist operations both here and abroad. Many will say that Ashcroft has put our civil liberties at risk, and there are a number of points along that line of argument that I would be willing to concede - especially about the extreme care that should be taken in enacting anti-terrorist legislation, surveillance etc. What I won’t go nodding my head to is the left’s incessant complaining that he has infringed on their rights, shredded the Constitution, or otherwise made life in America worse during his tenure and through his resolve to vigorously fight terrorism.

If someone could provide for me an actual example of how the Patriot Act has personally made them any less free, I would certainly be willing to listen (do not reply if you are a terrorist trying to bomb people). And I certainly do not have the time on my hands at the moment to launch into a pre-emptive defense for every complaint of what after all is some fairly complicated legislation. But I think if angry Anti-Bushocrats were willing to look at the legal specifics of the Act through an unbiased lens, they might be surprised to find that the intelligence and law enforcement tools authorized by the Patriot Act (which was passed, by the way, by overwhelming majority in Congress) have been utilized in a manner that has been as measured at it has been effective. They might be surprised to find out, for instance, as the ACLU did when they tried to sue Ashcroft in Detroit last year to stop him from enforcing Section 215 of the Patriot Act, that he had never once authorized a Section 215 order to be sought. D’oh!

So Ashcroft, your humble blogger believes, is a man who at his core does very much value our liberties. That freedom which government is most apt at providing, after all, is the freedom to live out our lives peacefully. It’s a pretty important one, and unfortunately one that has been marked for death by our enemies. Let the record show that during Bush’s first term Ashcroft worked earnestly and effectively to protect that all-important freedom.

There’s more I could say about why I have enormous respect for Ashcroft despite all his controversies, but that should already be enough to make our more lefty Billiken readers contemplate murdering me. So we can leave it at that. Anyways Ashy, thank you for four years of admirable service. You have earned yourself the respect of many Americans, a place in history, and a good long vacation from Washington. Don’t mind the playa-haters, my man.

You done us well.