McCain/Ashcroft ‘08: We’re Listening

By Kleinheider Posted on July 21, 2008 at 12:37 pm

The American Spectator discusses the former reviled Attorney General’s prospects for getting picked by John McCain to serve as Veep:

A loyal footsoldier hung out to dry by the Bush administration after willingly acting as its chief spear-catcher, the former Missouri senator endured brutal treatment by an ignorant and horribly biased establishment media. But the truth is now coming out, so that the same media, joined by liberal Democrats such as John Conyers, are rightly portraying Ashcroft in almost heroic terms, especially because of his now-famous hospital-bed refusal to be bullied into improper actions by Alberto Gonzales. The fact is that Ashcroft’s Justice Department was a model of professionalism and attention to constitutional detail, and his two-term governorship and term in the Senate were both impressive. No single choice by McCain could so energize the religious right without turning off economic and foreign policy conservatives; nobody could boast a fuller resume; and very few are as smart or, frankly, as personable when allowed to make his own case rather than being forced to twist in the wind by White House overlords. Give Ashcroft free rein, and he’ll soon dispel the caricature of him as a right-wing scold and recapture his true, middle-America persona.

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