Ashcroft Rising From the Ashes?
Despite my family's Missouri roots and a professional path that took me to Capitol Hill and the White House, I couldn't think of anything to say to the former Attorney General and United States Senator.
After all, his recent media exposure had been abysmal. Here was a guy who lost a Senate race to a dead man and then saw his reputation sink further from there. He was the man who famously covered the bare breasts of the statues at the Department of Justice. He was the man whose political enemies accused him of treating the U. S. Constitution as origami material. And most damaging in the 21st century media universe, he sang. Badly.
But sometimes in Washington D.C., things get a bit Newtonian, and one politician's decline results in another's rise. With Ashcroft's successor at the Justice Department being raked over the coals, the former Senator has enjoyed a slight rebound in his media image this past week.
First came last week's tale of The Dramatic Hospital Bed Constitutional Crisis of March 2004 that came to light in former deputy Attorney General James Comey's Senate testimony. According to the New York Times' coverage, the domestic eavesdropping program was about to expire, and the Justice Department – run temporarily by Comey while Ashcroft was hospitalized for gall bladder problems – wouldn't renew it.
Mr. Comey said that on the evening of March 10, 2004, [then-White House counsel Alberto] Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then Mr. Bush's chief of staff, tried to bypass him by secretly visiting Mr. Ashcroft. Mr. Ashcroft was extremely ill and disoriented, Mr. Comey said, and his wife had forbidden any visitors.Gonzalez and Card thought they would do an end run around Comey and appeal to Ashcroft directly in his hospital room, but Comey found out and got to the hospital a little bit before them. It got even more dramatic from there, according to Comey:
"(Ashcroft) lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter and said to them, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.' And he pointed to me.And the rehabilitation of Ashcroft's image continued. Sunday's Washington Post showcased a curious assortment of characters – not all of them Ashcroft apologists – reconsidering their characterizations of the former A.G.:
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) praised his "fidelity to the rule of law." The Wonkette Web site posted the headline: "Ashcroft Takes Heroic Stand." Under a similar headline, "John Ashcroft, American Hero," Andrew Sullivan expressed astonishment on his Atlantic magazine blog that "John Ashcroft was way too moderate for these people."From a journalistic standpoint, the Washington Post piece was rather lenient when it came to sourcing, attributing many flattering characterizations to "former aides" or "former officials" -- even quoting Ashcroft's former spokesman at one point. (And characterizing Andrew Sullivan as "on the left.") But it's an interesting example of the zero-sum game that is played inside the beltway.
So the next time you hear somebody ask if a politician can recover from this debacle or that scandal, remember that the tides of DC reputations wax and wane. There's never a final chapter in a politician's life until the obituary. Although I have to admit a Mark Foley comeback would be something of a surprise.