ASHCROFT'S AGENDA RUNS AFOUL OF THE LAW

John D. Ashcroft is a thoughtful, decent, honest, principled man whose
recent actions as U.S. attorney general disturbingly belie those traits.

They paint a picture of someone who has become heady with power and who
genuflects to the ultra-conservative wing of his party. When Mr. Ashcroft
went to Washington to serve at the behest of the Bush administration, did
he sell his soul to buy favorite conservative status among his core
constituency or simply forget to pack his reputed fair-play Missouri ways
on the trek to the Justice Department?

The John Ashcroft I knew from 20 years ago may have privately favored
extreme measures like trampling on states' rights to block an
assisted-suicide law, or even revoking lawyer-client privileges to press a
point, but adherence to the rule of law would have prevented public action.
While he has always been a conservative's conservative, even liberals
respected his straight-forward, pull-no-punches strategies in ideological
battles. So who is the devil-may-care unilateralist masquerading as
attorney general these days?

Much has changed since Sept. 11 and so has the boldness of the government
to initiate unheard of restraints on civil rights in the name of preventing
violence or terrorism. In any other time citizens living in a free society
would be up in arms over the heavy-handedness of their leaders to suppress
information, to suspend constitutional liberties, and to issue stunning
dictates assailing state and legal rights without need or regard for public
or congressional approval. But extraordinary times call for extraordinary
measures, and Americans have given their government incredible latitude to
strengthen national security.

While outraged civil libertarians warn that the government is setting
terrifying precedents in restricting or revoking fundamental safeguards to
liberty, the public still seems willing to give government the benefit of
the doubt during wartime.

Blind faith in government during a crisis - albeit an alarming notion if
history is any teacher - may nevertheless explain the inclination of the
masses to go along with Washington's extraordinary measures to monitor and
intercept heretofore private, protected information.

But that mindset doesn't explain the totally unrelated intrusion of the
government's chief law enforcement officer into Oregon's physician-assisted
suicide law. While the country is preoccupied with fighting terrorism, Mr.
Ashcroft is off advancing a matter near and dear to the religious right.

As the only state to make assisted suicide legal, Oregon has been Ground
Zero for conservative opponents crusading against the law as immoral public
policy. The Death With Dignity Act has been challenged almost continually
since Oregon voters approved it in 1994 and 1997. It has withstood legal
efforts to block its implementation and has been upheld as constitutional
by a federal appeals court. Twice congressional conservatives tried to
overturn Oregon's landmark law under the Controlled Substances Act.

Twice that effort to supplant Oregon law with a federal drug law aimed
primarily at controlling interstate drug abuse and trafficking failed.
Former Attorney General Janet Reno declared federal drug agents had no
business moving against Oregon doctors using state law. Under Oregon's
assisted-suicide practices, physicians are allowed to prescribe federally
controlled substances, like morphine, to a terminally ill patient but not
administer them.

Whether or not you agree with assisted suicide as a legal option,
Oregonians have made their acceptance of the matter resoundingly clear at
the ballot box. Moreover, states have traditionally regulated medical
practices within their borders and Oregon has a right to do so without
federal interference motivated by political passions.

Fortunately a federal judge temporarily barred drug enforcement agents from
encroaching on the state with a made-to-order federal drug prohibition.

Unfortunately, the integrity of John Ashcroft was compromised when he chose
to live down to the reputation ascribed to him by critics as one more
interested in advancing moral agendas than upholding the law of the land.