Word: ashcrofts
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...debate, from left to right and back again, has already begun. Where is the message in John Ashcroft's confirmation as U.S. attorney general? Was it in the slim margin of his victory? Or in the victory itself...
...Liberal analysis favors the former point of view: Democratic Senators (42 of them, at least) banded together to send a sharp warning shot across the White House bow. You want Ashcroft? OK, we'll give him to you in a grudging sign of bipartisanship. Just don't push us. As Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who voted against Ashcroft, told reporters Friday, "We'll cooperate when [future Bush and Ashcroft appointees] are from the center. But we're going to be very concerned when they're from the right...
...From the right, of course, the view is much different. There's a quiet but firm belief that Bush won a major victory getting Ashcroft confirmed - and that the only folks who should get a "message" from the process are the Democrats who tried to sink the nomination. It's time, in other words, for Democrats to face up to the fact that they lost the presidential election, they don't have a majority in the Senate, and they are no longer in any position to call the shots...
...Perhaps it doesn't much matter at this point who gets the fleeting leg up - outside the Beltway, few minds have been or will be changed by a purely academic debate over political one-upmanship. Voters who railed against Ashcroft's nomination will probably continue to feel betrayed by the new president and will rally behind 42 of 50 Senate Democrats. Those who supported Ashcroft's candidacy will feel vindicated, and stand behind his champions in the Senate...
...Waller: Yes, but Feingold is a real independent, and he's also worried about setting a precedent for opposing nominations solely on the basis of ideology - and he worries that future liberal appointees would face retaliation if the fight over Ashcroft had gotten bloody...