ASHCROFT: OUT OF SIGHT ON THE RIGHT

BOSTON -- The district attorney of Kings County (Brooklyn), N.Y.,
Charles J. Hynes, has for 10 years run a program that diverts
nonviolent drug offenders from prison to treatment: a tough
residential regimen of up to two years. It has been a great success.
Those who complete the program get into renewed trouble with the law
at half the rate of other drug offenders.

Congress came close last month to authorizing federal grants for drug
treatment alternatives on that model. A bill sponsored by two
Republicans, Orrin Hatch and Strom Thurmond, and a Democrat, Charles
Schumer, passed the Senate; another passed the House with the support
of such conservatives as Bob Barr of Georgia. But the two versions
were not reconciled before Congress adjourned.

Given that support for drug treatment alternatives, Hynes was
troubled when he learned that John Ashcroft, George W. Bush's choice
for attorney general, had spoken against the idea. Ashcroft told a
conservative think tank in 1997:

"A government which takes the resources that we would devote toward
the interdiction of drugs and converts them to treatment resources,
and instead of saying 'Just say no' says 'Just say maybe' or 'Just
don't inhale' ... is a government that accommodates us at our lowest
and least."

Ashcroft thus scorned a policy that has the support of men as
conservative as Strom Thurmond and Bob Barr. His position, on this as
on so many issues, was out of sight on the far right of our politics.

How would he as attorney general carry out a law, if Congress now
passes it, to aid drug treatment alternatives as more effective and
more economical than prison? Hynes told me, "I would hope he would
rethink his position."

The same question arises on other issues. How would he enforce the
law against disruption of clinics that provide abortion, when he has
said that more than anything else he would like to forbid all
abortions except to save the mother's life? How committed would he be
to the civil rights laws, given his acceptance of an honorary degree
from Bob Jones University and his statement that it was wrong to
describe the Confederate cause - the preservation of slavery - as
"perverted"?

Ashcroft was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's
subcommittee on constitutional rights. He held hearings not on
discrimination or freedom of speech or the like. His subjects
included the right to gun ownership, punishment for burning the flag
and reversing the Miranda decision.

The Senate should be a place of diverse opinions, no matter how
extreme. But the role of the attorney general is different. That is
the point of the controversy about the choice of John Ashcroft. The
question is whether the country can have confidence in someone so
extreme to enforce the law impartially and with respect for our legal
tradition.

If he were not a former senator, the idea of a person with Ashcroft's
views being attorney general would be regarded as grotesque. He would
have no chance to be confirmed by the Senate. But because he was a
member of the club, everyone is predicting his confirmation.

The Christian right, which made the attorney general's job its No. 1
demand, is all-out in its support. No one can expect detached
appraisals from Republican senators. Sen. Arlen Specter, a so-called
moderate, wrote an Op-Ed piece for The New York Times calling for
moderates in the cabinet - and hastened to add that Ashcroft was "an
excellent nominee."

As for Democratic senators, not one has had the courage so far to say
that he will oppose the Ashcroft nomination. If Al Gore had been
elected and had chosen someone far out on the left for the job, would
conservative senators have been so deferential? Not bloody likely.

The political turmoil of recent years has often swirled around the
attorney general. We need a reassuring figure, one who can bring us
back to confidence in the law. George W. Bush's failure to understand
that is the worst aspect of this episode.

After the turmoil of Watergate, President Gerald Ford made a
non-political choice: Edward Levi, president of the University of
Chicago, who restored the Justice Department's luster. Writing about
Ford during the Republican Convention last August, I asked whether
George W. Bush, in choosing an attorney general, would follow Gerald
Ford and put politics second to respect for law. We know the answer
now.