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Fla. 'Overvotes' Hit Democrats The Hardest
Gore 3 Times as Likely as Bush To Be Listed on Tossed Ballots

By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post, Saturday, January 27, 2001; Page A01


KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- Florida voters who spoiled their ballots because they punched more than one presidential candidate's name were three times as likely to have included Vice President Gore as one of their choices as George W. Bush, a Washington Post analysis has found.

A review of computerized records for 2.7 million votes in eight of Florida's largest counties offers new details of how voters erred. It reveals that, while both Vice President Gore and George W. Bush each may have lost votes that were intended for them, Democratic voters were significantly more likely to have invalidated their ballots than Republican voters.

According to the Post's analysis, the biggest problem for Gore was in "overvotes," ballots invalidated because voters indicated multiple choices for president. Although the number of ballots thrown out for that reason was known shortly after the Nov. 7 election, The Post analysis for the first time shows the voting patterns contained in those ballots. Gore was by far most likely to be selected on invalid overvoted ballots, with his name punched as one of the choices on 46,000 of them. Bush, by comparison, was punched on 17,000.

Democratic votes also appear to have been disproportionately affected because of Palm Beach County's infamous "butterfly ballot." The study found that the 8,000 voters whose ballots were thrown out because they chose Gore and one of the two other presidential candidates listed near him voted more than 10 to 1 Democratic in the U.S. Senate race.

The imperfections of Florida's voting system have been clear since shortly after Election Day, when problems with a confusing ballot design in Palm Beach County and difficulties with the punch card voting system used in 26 of the state's 67 counties raised questions about who had won a majority of Florida's 6 million votes.

The Post review indicates that problems with the voting machinery -- or voters' failure to use it properly -- resulted in thousands of voters who went to the polls only to have none of their ballots in any races counted. Thousands more may have mistakenly voted for a presidential candidate other than the one they wanted because they failed to follow instructions on how to insert the punch cards into the voting machines.

President Bush and congressional leaders pledged this week to study election reform because of the Florida failures. The Post findings suggest that the problems are not just hanging chads or outdated technology, however, but tens of thousands of voters who misunderstood how voting works, were confused by the instructions and did not receive sufficient help in the process.

A consortium of media organizations, including The Washington Post, will next month begin an examination of all votes statewide that did not register when passed through an automatic counting machine. A similar, separate count by the Miami Herald is underway.

Unlike those efforts, which will be based on a hand examination of the physical ballots, The Post analysis of the eight counties was based on an examination of the computer record made for each ballot when it passed through the automatic counting machines. These mechanical readers shine light through each card to detect which holes have been punched out.

Although the files -- which have no voter identification -- include the details of every mark detected by the equipment, revealing the exact pattern on each ballot, they do not contain information about marks that the machines could not read. This includes such such things as dimples or partially detached chads that were the subject of so much attention.

The Post requested records from the 12 counties in Florida that use punch cards and counting software that keeps records of each ballot. Because this kind of information has not been analyzed before and is not permanently stored, some of the counties did not have the records, and not all counties had records for every precinct. In the end, The Post obtained the computer files from Miami-Dade, Broward (Fort Lauderdale), Palm Beach, Hillsborough (Tampa), Pinellas (St. Petersburg), Marion (Ocala), Highlands and Pasco counties.

Four of the counties voted for Bush and four for Gore, but large Gore victories in Broward and Palm Beach counties made the overall totals for the counties examined favor Gore by 56 to 42 percent. The Post findings were consistent, however, no matter which candidate won the county. Even in the counties won by Bush, Gore was included on more of the overvote ballots than Bush, and more of the voters who spoiled their ballots in the presidential race voted Democratic in the U.S. Senate. The analysis showed this pattern in all eight counties.

The Post found that more than 15,000 voters cast no recorded votes -- for president or any other office. This suggests widespread problems with the voting equipment, or a situation in which thousands of voters went to the polls, waited in line, signed in to get their ballots, went into the voting booth and turned in their ballots without making a single vote.

"We've seen that for years -- a blank ballot with no votes on it -- but people didn't believe us," said Deborah Clark, supervisor of elections in Pinellas County.

Bush and Gore may have both lost thousands of votes because voters did not insert the ballots into the voting machines. The Post found 8,000 ballots with punches in holes that are blocked when the punch card is inserted into the equipment.

Gore may have lost even more votes from those whose ballots were not counted because they reflected two votes for president. In the eight counties examined, people who overvoted for president but cast a valid vote in the U.S. Senate race favored the Democrat 70 to 24 percent.

In almost every county, the pairing of Gore with each of the more obscure candidates garnered more votes than the lesser-known candidate got alone. In the most prevalent combination, more than 6,800 voters punched holes for both Gore and Libertarian Harry Browne. Browne's name appeared right after Gore on the ballots in seven of the counties.

The next most common choice was Gore and Reform Party nominee Patrick J. Buchanan, with 6,300 ballots. That combination was most prevalent in Palm Beach County, where the butterfly ballot positioned Gore's spot between Buchanan and Socialist David McReynolds.

The Palm Beach County voters who punched either Gore-Buchanan or Gore-McReynolds voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the U.S. Senate race, favoring Bill Nelson over Republican Bill McCollum, 6,645 to 632.

Many of the obscure candidates had thousands more punches on invalid overvotes than on valid ballots. Socialist Workers candidate James Harris won only 300 votes in the eight counties, but his name was punched on more than 12,600 overpunched ballots, or 42 spoiled punches for every legitimate vote.

An additional 5,800 Floridians punched their ballots for both Bush and Gore. This group of voters was 10 times the size of Bush's winning margin in Florida.

Voting experts suggest that the apparent tendency of Democratic voters to have a higher spoilage rate on their ballots than Republican voters is due to the fact that Democrats, through an intense get-out-the-vote drive targeted at minority communities, managed to motivate many newer and first-time voters who were not familiar with the voting equipment. Democratic voters were also more likely to be concentrated in counties that did not check ballots for errors in the precinct. Republican counties were more likely to have that second-chance technology to correct their ballots.

The problems found by The Post have been familiar to Florida elections officials for years, though officials said ballot errors were higher last year because of the 10 presidential candidates listed, which they said led to more accidental overvotes and caused problems in ballot design.

"All the voters who did all these strange things are a very small slice of society, but just because this election was so close, that small slice was life or death for the candidates," said Paul Craft, manager of the voting equipment section of the Florida Division of Elections.

Now that the public is aware of these mistakes, they will be changed, Miami-Dade Election Supervisor David Leahy said. "The punch card machines are dead," he said. "So much damage has been done that people have lost faith in it. It has to be replaced. The question is, with what?"

Among voters who invalidated their presidential ballot by making more than one choice, 75 percent successfully cast a valid vote for U.S. Senate. Clay Roberts, head of the Florida Division of Elections, said he thinks that a lot of undervotes and overvotes are intentional.

"There are people who overvote on purpose, I'm convinced," he said. "Are they all intentional? No. Some are accidental. People who are engaged in politics can't understand why people would overvote. But there are valid reasons for undervotes and overvotes. For some voters, that undervote or overvote is their decision."


© 2001 The Washington Post Company

Bush Was Booed and the Stands Were Half Empty
"Did you catch any of Saturday's festivities on TV? They looked so forlorn. I grew up in Washington, and I can't recall an inaugural, even in dreadful weather, where the stands were so empty."--Frank Rich in Slate Magazine

And that wasn't even the half of it. They could have easily filled those stands with the jeering crowds on the parade route, although you wouldn't have known that from watching the news, or reading the front page of the Sunday NY Times, which could have been written weeks before the inauguration. Which makes me wonder how the NY Times determines what is news? Is it really a banner headline at this point that Bush was inaugurated? Is it news that, on January 20th 4 years after the last inauguration, a president is inaugurated? (that is, once we know who has been designated as the inauguree, which is old news by the time of the inauguration.) The only news would have been if he wasn't inaugurated for some reason. Is it news by this point that George Bush took the oath of office from William Rehnquist, that Laura Bush held the family Bible, and that Bush gave an inauguration speech calling for compassion and civility and character and unity and a common good? Is it really news that "Proud Father and Son Bask in History's Glow" or that Gore says farewell?

All of this is a dog-bites-man kind of news story as far as I'm concerned. What was far more interesting--and what was virtually ignored by the media--was that the motorcade had to run a gauntlet of booing protesters for pretty much the length of the parade route--until the last block, which was apparently blocked off to everyone except ticket holders. In my opinion it is news that this was (as far as I know) the first inaugural parade where the president did not walk the whole route or even most of it, but only the part at the end that was closed off to the general public. (Is Nixon an exception?)

It deserves a headline that that this was the first inauguration where you had to pass through checkpoints to attend the parade, and that even that and the weather did not deter the throngs of people yelling "shame! shame!" "Thief! Thief!" and "Fraud! Fraud!" holding up signs, and giving the president a thumbs down. (The protesters and jeerers far outnumbered the poor Bush supporters in the bleachers, and the few hapless celebrants in the crowd, whose numbers became fewer and fewer as the afternoon wore on.)

It was noteworthy that when it started hailing at the beginning of the route, the protesters chanted the pun "Hail to the Thief!" at the presidential limo, which at one point had to stop amid a jeering crowd for five minutes as its security escort caught up. The limo speeded up at other points to pass the protesters. The parade route was cordoned off into sections so that nobody could walk the length of Pennsylvania Ave, and at certain points people couldn't leave their area. Apparently Bush Jr. drew the largest inauguration protest crowds since Nixon's second inauguration, even in the freezing rain.

All of this is far more of a "Man Bites Dog" kind of story, in my opinion, but it was buried in the folds of the old grey lady, which reported in the second to last paragraph of the lead story on page 16: "After the ceremony was the parade, and once the car transporting the new president and first lady down Pennsylvania Avenue had passed most of the protesters, the couple climbed out of the vehicle to walk only the end of the route." Then there is a side article on page 17 that mentioned "Along the parade route, the jeers often drowned out the cheers for the president." Okay, so it wasn't just my imagination! . . . --Hallie Leighton


Turning Up The Sound On a Day Of Causes
Much Noise, Anger; Few Problems, Arrests

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 21, 2001; Page A25


Thousands of intense and flamboyant demonstrators filled parts of downtown and lined several blocks of the inaugural parade route yesterday, welcoming George W. Bush to the White House with the largest inaugural protest since one during the Vietnam War.

There were a few arrests and some vandalism during a few brief scuffles with police, but most protesters were peaceful. Several demonstrators were doused with pepper spray in one incident, and another was left bleeding in a separate confrontation. The most violent gestures directly aimed at the new president came when an egg, four green apples and a plastic water bottle were tossed in the direction of his limousine.

The styles and passions of dissent were almost as varied as the grievances, from opposition to the death penalty and advocacy for the environment to complaints about the election. While one contingent marched around the Supreme Court denouncing what was called racist disenfranchisement of voters, and another listened to speeches on electoral reform at Dupont Circle, thousands more filled Freedom Plaza, brushing past a line of Girl Scouts in yellow slickers to seize bleacher seats that had been reserved for Republican loyalists. From these $50 perches, as shocked members of the Presidential Inaugural Committee looked on, the protesters chanted: "George Bush, racist murderer!"

Many protesters were college age, but many were older. They roared in support of angry orators and laughed at more satirical displays.

During the long, wet hours, self-styled Radical Cheerleaders led chants about anarchy, a herd of environmentalists donned cardboard caribou headgear, and a woman bared her breasts to reveal an anti-Bush slogan. At one point, when it began to hail, some on America's Main Street chanted: "Hail to the thief."

The day was a stark departure from the past. The largest previous demonstrations, in 1973, for Richard M. Nixon's second inauguration, took place largely removed from the president's sight. This year, because of the success of antiabortion demonstrators who sued to win permits for the last inauguration, protesters were granted permits along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they resolved to show up even where they didn't have permits.

Organizers said they achieved their goal of making their presence unavoidable. Bush's reaction was impossible to know. Protesters on each block erupted in shouts and obscene gestures as the presidential motorcade proceeded by slowly. When the four limousines passed Freedom Plaza, some hands inside the limos could be seen waving.

"This is great," said Brian Becker, co-director of the International Action Center, a New York-based group that filled Freedom Plaza to voice its opposition to the death penalty and to racism. "This is precisely the scene the Bush administration did everything to prevent. As they went up Pennsylvania Avenue, they didn't want to see thousands of placard-waving protesters opposed to his conservative policies, and we've done it."

Others were upset at such a display what is traditionally a day of national celebration.

Between the swearing-in and the parade, John Cosgrove, of Bethesda, tried to guide his wife through the chanting crowd to cross Pennsylvania Avenue to a reception. The retiree said he has been to almost every inauguration since Franklin D. Roosevelt's second in 1937. What he saw yesterday angered him.

"It's the worst I've seen," he said. "The inauguration used to be a celebration, a time to thank our outgoing president and incoming one." The protesters, he said, "are infringing on my right to celebrate."

The demonstrators said love of country animated them, too. "I feel like I'm doing my civic duty," said Theresa Cassiack, 22, from New York City, who said she was concerned about free speech, women's rights, racial equality and gay rights. "We're the check on the higher power."

The day began early for protesters, in the streets well before Bush supporters. At 8:30 a.m., a few hundred met at 12th and G streets NW, then marched to 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, to the beat of homemade drums.

A boisterous crowd of more than 1,000 assembled at Dupont Circle just before 10 a.m., chastising Bush for "stealing" the election. At 10:30, city crews arrived to cut an effigy of Bush from a tree. Speaker Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, told the crowd: "Let them have the tree. We have all of Dupont Circle and we have the whole country. They just have the White House."

Two large columns marched from the circle to reinforce those assembling on the parade route. Meanwhile, near the Supreme Court, Al Sharpton, Walter E. Fauntroy and other civil rights activists were holding a "shadow" inauguration and parade, also attended by enthusiastic Green Party members, who boosted the crowd to more than 1,000.

Atlantic City casino worker Scott Schuster drove down with 30 friends. "People have been disenfranchised from voting for a long time, but this election made it so blatantly obvious," said Schuster, turning up his collar against the rain. "You just can't let that pass."

Starting in the Shaw neighborhood at 14th and U streets NW, a "Day of Outrage" march of nearly 100, organized by the New Black Panther Party, also headed for the parade route. Many of the Panthers wore shin guards, helmets and protective visors. "We are not among friends," said organizer Malik Zulu Shabazz.

The group's protest agenda included racial profiling, the death penalty and, especially, police brutality. "If this country is about the truth like it says it is, and it isn't, then it would have allowed the recount so everybody could be satisfied that their vote was counted and their voice was heard," said Renee Stout, 42, an artist from the District.

As various columns converged on the parade route, protesters spread up and down the avenue, with the biggest mass -- thousands -- at Freedom Plaza. "I think all the people here are pro-American," said Michael Hernandez, 24, from Brooklyn, N.Y. "What we are trying to do is bring back democracy."

At the beginning of the parade route, near Fourth Street NW and Pennsylvania, was the Oral Majority, and many of the 50 members who rode a bus from Florida were protest rookies -- people of various races and ages stirred to action by the election.

Florence Elion, a World War II veteran from Palm Beach, said she is a registered Republican and "just not the type" to protest. "It's heartbreaking to think that Bush was selected by the Supreme Court," she said.

Not all demonstrators were anti-Bush. Farther along the route were 200 antiabortion demonstrators, most in their late teens or twenties.

Ana Fontana, 18, a student from Long Island, shouted, "Babies are gifts, not burdens," at the people walking along the sidewalk. She and the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition, said they wanted to bring the message to fellow paradegoers as well as encourage a ban on abortion.

Fifty pro-Bush supporters demonstrated at the Supreme Court -- but did not cross paths with Sharpton's march.

"Our eight years of national embarrassment ends in just a few hours," said Chuck Muth, an editor of a conservative e-mail newsletter from Las Vegas, addressing the National Patriots March.

In one scuffle between police and demonstrators, members of the anarchist Black Bloc confronted officers at 14th and K streets NW. Two were arrested and a third bloodied by a police baton.

At the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue, more than 50 officers charged when several in the crowd began climbing the ship mast there and replacing Navy flags with a black and red anarchist flag.

The day of demonstrating, with police ever present, was an awakening for the many first-time protesters in town.

Their eyeglasses were fogged, their sensible coats muddy, but what really flustered one group was the column of police officers assembling before them.

"I can't believe this -- they're afraid of us?" said Carolyn King, a 54-year-old sales representative who decided two weeks ago to be a protester. "I'm angry. . . . I think if Gore did the same thing -- not count all the ballots -- I would still be out here."

She flew from Grand Rapids, Minn., to meet her sister from Palm Beach County, Fla., who says she may have punched the wrong name on the ballot.

They met an old friend, Kathy Rais, 45, who took a bus from a Philadelphia suburb without her family's knowledge. "This is my first protest ever," Rais said. "My family won't believe I did this."


© 2001 The Washington Post Company

January 21, 2001

New York Times

CRITICS NOTEBOOK
Reality of Nation's Divisions Quickly Creeps Into the Commentary
By CARYN JAMES
On ceremonial occasions, television anchors and commentators like to retreat into a soothing little bubble, where every action they observe is majestic and every viewer shares their sense of awe. But cheerleaders' attitudes don't last long in today's political world.

The coverage of the inauguration began with a conscious, never credible effort to avoid politics. It has been "one of the strangest elections in history," Dan Rather said, "but that is history now."

Peter Jennings said, "This is a day to suspend political passions," except for "absolute cynics."

But you didn't have to be a cynic to see reality creeping in, with comments on the rancorous post-election recount and the divided Congress, and eventually with visible evidence of furious protesters along the parade route. The anchors' inability to stay inside their illusory bubble sent a strong message to viewers: the country is living on a split screen.

Simply looking at the fraught images on the inaugural stand, any viewer could supply the subtext. As Al Gore and Bill Clinton walked onto the stage for the swearing in of their successors, Tom Brokaw said, "We can only wonder what Al Gore must be thinking . . . knowing that he did get more popular votes."

Commentators longed to be mind readers. Several wondered about the atmosphere in the limousine that carried George W. Bush and Mr. Clinton to the Capitol, especially because the new president had said he would immediately review and even block some of the federal regulations that the departing president had just put through.

Minutes after Mr. Bush's inaugural speech, Mr. Brokaw noted that while Democrats and Republicans see a national longing for unity, "the Democrats don't want to be co-opted" politically, and that the next year and a half "is going to be a time of great wariness."

On CNN, Frank Sesno pointed out that even Republicans disagreed about campaign-finance reform and the size of tax cuts. When Jeff Greenfield noted the clubby cheerfulness among Republicans and Democrats at the inauguration, his CNN colleague Judy Woodruff gently brought him back to earth. "But, Jeff," she said, "you know politics is theater."

Later in the afternoon, as the new president's car drove along the rain-soaked parade route, police in riot gear kept back vehement protesters for a short time. Reporters could not decide whether the boos in the crowd outweighed the cheers, and they struggled to sort out who the protesters were (people upset about the election and opposed to Mr. Bush's policies on everything from the environment to trade, they finally decided).

"It seems that all the boiling emotions of that post-election contest have reappeared here on the streets of Washington," Terry Moran said on ABC.

And while the new president was eating lunch with members of Congress, viewers watched former President Bill Clinton say goodbye at Andrews Air Force Base. Inside a dreary hangar, prominent members of his administration lined up (Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state, and Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser, among them), creating the image of a government in exile.

"You see that sign that says `Please Don't Go?' " Mr. Clinton said, laughing and pointing into the crowd. "Well, I left the White House, but I'm still here."

Throughout the day, reporters drew attention to the difference between what they called "Clinton time" (never on schedule) and "Bush time" (precisely on schedule). But that difference is slight compared with their contrasting approaches to the camera. The new president may bring back any number of people from the first Bush administration, but he inherits a media world far different from the one his father left behind eight years ago, before the explosion of 24-hour news and the Oprahization of politics. Mr. Clinton knew how to use that new television world.

Mr. Bush is fabled for being more charming and persuasive off camera than on, and his two speeches on Inauguration Day were as uneven as usual. He delivered his Inaugural Address with smooth if stiff confidence. He was looser and more to the point in his brief talk after the Congressional lunch.

"The expectation in the country is that we can't get anything done," he said, with more emotion than he had shown earlier. People assume, he said, that "the election was so close, nothing will happen except for finger pointing and name calling and bitterness."

"I'm here to tell the country that things will get done, that we're going to rise above expectations," Mr. Bush said.

Like the commentators, he seemed more relaxed and effective when acknowledging the national divide rather than trying to ignore it. That may be the best evidence that the media honeymoon the anchors tried to give him yesterday was self-defeating from the start.


Bush protesters line parade route

Thousands descend on capital, clash with police

MSNBC, January 20, 2001

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 — Police and thousands of demonstrators faced off Saturday as protesters lined President George W. Bush’s inaugural parade route, booing loudly and holding signs that said “Bush lost” and “Hail to the thief.” As the motorcade reached the most strident stretch of the route, Bush’s limousine sped up, with Secret Service agents running alongside.
DEMONSTRATIONS WERE HELD throughout the day in what turned out to be the largest inaugural protests since 1973, when tens of thousands of marchers protested Nixon’s Vietnam War policies as he was sworn in for his second term. Organizers of the Bush protests anticipated 20,000 demonstrators; police did not release actual numbers.
Although most of the demonstrators were peaceful, if noisy, authorities arrested six people, said Terrance W. Gainer, executive assistant chief of police.
Row upon row of uniformed police held back protesters along the parade route, which extended two miles from Capitol Hill to the White House. Demonstrators were spread throughout the crowd and managed to form heavy clusters in some spots as they jeered boisterously — and sometimes profanely. At one spot near the Ronald Reagan Building, they took over an entire grandstand.

BUSH SUPPORTERS LOOK DEJECTED
All along the way, a largely young crowd waved a motley bunch of signs and placards reading, “Shame,” “Mockery of Democracy,” and “Silenced Majority.” A topless woman protesting for animal rights held a sign in front of her reading, “Bush in, fur out.”
Some supporters looked dejected as protesters yelled at Bush’s limousine: “Racist, sexist anti-gay: Bush and Cheney go away.”
A couple of protesters threw bottles and tomatoes before the presidential limousine arrived, and one hurled an egg that landed near the motorcade, the Secret Service said.
The motorcade sped up at one point, and Secret Service agents had to hop on a limousine’s running board to keep up.

Still, when the motorcade approached a large group of cheering supporters, Bush and wife Laura decided to hop out and greet the crowd.
The crowds of protesters largely dispersed as the rainy afternoon wore on.
Though some police clashed with demonstrators, others walking the crowd-control barriers chatted amiably with the protesters. Police monitoring security check points told spectators, “If you have anything in your bags, open your bags.”
The security frustrated even Bush supporters. “Security is tighter than it needs to be,” said Rep. Tom Davis, R.-Va., fuming as he waited to be ushered by a barricade.
One sign-wielding demonstrator stood on a rise, mimicking the security efforts. “If you have any thoughts in your head at all, leave them at the barricades,” he shouted.
Other protests contained a touch of levity. About 10 people wearing large papier-maché caribou heads were protesting Bush’s support of oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled Friday that the checkpoints wouldn’t target protesters or violate their rights but said the arrangement “sounds like a logistical nightmare.”

ANGER OVER FLORIDA VOTE
Most protesters came out to voice frustration over the contested vote in Florida, where Bush and Democrat Al Gore ended just hundreds of votes apart and a month-long recount of ballots was halted only when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered officials to end their work, which declared Bush winner of the state’s decisive 25 electoral votes.

“If he had won clearly, I wouldn’t have troubled to come here,” said Mack Wilder, a construction worker from Greensboro, N.C., who joined more than 100 others from the state for a five-hour bus journey through fog and rain.
Some demonstrators wore masks and costumes bearing likeness to the five Supreme Court justices.
Some spectators came just to watch the protests.
“We just wanted to get a flavor of this. Considering the guy (George W. Bush) got in, we don’t see any supporters,” said Sal Campo of Takoma Park, Md.
Campo’s friend, Karin Romanenko, corrected him: “Wait a minute, there were some at the Metro stop. They sang ‘Hail to the Chief,’ but just once.”

CLASH IN THE STREETS
Police said they cracked down on a mass of protesters at 14th and K streets after some of the demonstrators started slashing tires. Some 15 to 20 people reportedly were arrested and one officer was reported injured. District of Columbia police Chief Charles Ramsey arrived with what he called strategic reserve forces, five buses of uniformed officers, nightsticks in hand. About 100 officers stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to corral the demonstrators.

Ramsey told NBC News he had considered calling in the National Guard to help block protesters from the inaugural parade route but decided against it. Several protesters suffered injuries during the clashes with police.
Protester Samantha Knowlding said police were using clubs.
“I was pushed over by a policeman with a baton,” Knowlding said. She said she saw protesters being taken away in a bus and that police harassed a group of activists dressed in black, the traditional color worn by activists who consider themselves anarchists.
Earlier, a few officers were hurt after protesters threw bottles at them. One officer was bleeding from the eye, but none required hospitalization.
Patrolling the fringes of protests around the city were 160 lawyers organized by the National Lawyers Guild and the local Libertarian party.
“We’re here to observe and make sure that protesters and police respect the rights that both have,” said Kat DeBurgh of Washington.
There were also inaugural day protests in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento, Calif., Tallahasse, Fla., and Northampton, Mass.

MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson, Jon Bonné and Tom Curry, NBC’s Fred Francis and Joel Seidman; and The Associated Press contributed to this report




Saturday January 20 11:46 AM ET
Protesters Boo Inauguration of Bush

Reuters

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of demonstrators booed the inauguration of George W. Bush (news - web sites) on Saturday, holding signs such as ''Hail to the thief'' to protest his swearing-in which took place amid the tightest security measures ever.

Columns of demonstrators, championing a broad range of causes from abortion to electoral rights, stood on the route Bush took to the Capitol for his swearing-in and jeered as his presidential limousine went past carrying him and outgoing President Clinton (news - web sites).

The closer they got to the Capitol, the more people were cheering for the incoming president and there were fewer protesters, who had said they planned peaceful demonstrations but were fearful of a heavy-handed police response.

In the biggest ever security operation for an inauguration, police in riot gear and on horseback kept an eye on the protesters, joined by thousands of uniformed Secret Service agents in charge of the security operation.

Bottlenecks developed around the 10 security checkpoints set up by security forces to search anyone entering the parade route, which angered some impatient demonstrators.

Police, some dressed in heavy riot gear, appealed to protesters to line up in an orderly fashion.

``We've conformed to every rule. We've gone to court. We have a permit. Let's take our right,'' said Brian Becker co-director of International Action Center which helped organize the protests.

Tight Security Measures

A small group of protesters chanted ``Hey, hey, ho, ho, that son of a Bush has got to go,'' referring to the incoming president's father who occupied the White House before being ousted by Bill Clinton in 1992.

More than a dozen law enforcement agencies, with the Secret Service at the helm, were out in the city's streets to ensure there would not be a repeat of violent demonstrations that marred the World Bank's April 2000 meetings in the capital.

Aside from the checkpoints, all mail boxes had been removed along the parade route and barricades set up to hold back spectators and protesters alike. Another security measure included the closure of two subway stations.

Some demonstrators wore masks and costumes bearing a likeness to the five Supreme Court justices who voted to stop the recount of votes in Florida which ultimately gave Bush his electoral victory over Democratic candidate Al Gore (news - web sites).

Rick Bromberg, a 51-year-old lawyer from Fairfax, Virginia, carried a placard that spelled out ``Supreme Court'' with derogatory comments added after each letter about the new president.

``The Supreme Court stole the election for Bush,'' he said.

Some protesters wore black and yellow stickers on their backsides with the slogan: ``Equal Protection, My Ass'' while others had yellow and black T-shirts with the words ``Impeach Bush''.

Black Protesters Stage Mock Ceremony

Boston law student Lauren Redmond said she liked the black and yellow T-shirts because they reminded her of a bumble bee. ''If he ain't sweet we are going to sting him,'' she said.

Black civil rights groups, led by Rev. Al Sharpton, planned to stage a mock inauguration ceremony as Bush was being sworn in to protest what they believe was the disenfranchisement of the many in the black community during the election.

Police had prepared for the largest number of inaugural demonstrators since Richard Nixon's 1973 swearing-in when about 60,000 people turned out to protest the Vietnam War and some hurled fruit and pebbles at the presidential limousine.

A spokesman for the Justice Action Movement, one of the organizers, said on Saturday he anticipated the rain would reduce their numbers and that some buses bringing in demonstrators were delayed by bad weather.

Washington's deputy police chief, Terry Gainer, promised that police would be polite and respectful.

``There's plenty of room for everyone to both enjoy themselves and to protest,'' Gainer said.

Most of the Secret Service's 2,800 agents and 1,200 uniformed officers on duty as well as all of the city's 3,600 police officers and a further 1,400 were brought in from surrounding areas.

The Parks Service granted at least 16 permits for demonstrators. Other smaller groups -- of less than 25 -- were expected to mingle in the crowd of Bush supporters who were to line the route cheering for the 43rd U.S. president.

Demonstrators received a legal setback on Friday when a U.S. District judge said the tight security regulations could stay in place and that while the checkpoints were a ``logistical nightmare,'' the protesters' rights were not violated by them.


January 27, 2001
ABROAD AT HOME
New York Times

What Ashcroft Did
By ANTHONY LEWIS
BOSTON -- Even some conservatives are embarrassed now by the way Senator John Ashcroft killed the nomination of Ronnie White to be a federal judge. He told his Republican colleagues that Judge White, of the Missouri Supreme Court, had shown "a tremendous bent toward criminal activity." It was a baseless smear.

But it was not just dirty politics. It was dangerous, in a way that casts doubt on Senator Ashcroft's fitness to be attorney general.

Judge White was attacked by Senator Ashcroft because, in 59 capital cases before the Missouri court, he had voted 18 times to reverse the death sentence. In 10 of those 18 the court was unanimously for reversal. Senator Ashcroft hit at cases in which Judge White dissented.

For appraisal of Judge White's record in those cases I rely on Stuart Taylor Jr. of The National Journal, a conservative who is widely respected as a legal analyst. He wrote: "The two dissents most directly assailed by Ashcroft in fact exude moderation and care in dealing with the tension between crime-fighting and civil liberties."

One of the dissents was in a horrifying murder case — the murder, among others, of a sheriff. Mr. Taylor wrote that Judge White's "conclusion was plausible, debatable, highly unpopular (especially among police) and (for that reason) courageous. For John Ashcroft to call it `pro-criminal' was obscene."

In short, a judge who wrote a thoughtful, reasoned dissent in a murder case was told that it disqualified him for a federal judgeship. Think about what that means for our constitutional system.

Judicial independence has been a fundamental feature of the American system for 200 years and more. We rely on judges to enforce the Constitution: to protect our liberties. But a judge who does so in a controversial case is on notice from John Ashcroft that he may be punished. The judge must reject the constitutional claim, however meritorious, or face a malicious smear.

There is a slimy feel to Senator Ashcroft's behavior with Judge White. One of the Republicans who voted against the judge at Senator Ashcroft's urging, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, told Judge White the other day, "The Senate owes you an apology." Commentators have urged Senator Ashcroft to apologize, but he has refused.

That same sense of slipperiness is evident in another matter: Senator Ashcroft's role in blocking the nomination of James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg in 1998. Mr. Hormel is gay. Senator Ashcroft, explaining his opposition, said Mr. Hormel "has been a leader in promoting a lifestyle," and that was "likely to be offensive" in Luxembourg.

But 10 days ago, when Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, asked whether he had opposed Mr. Hormel because he is gay, Senator Ashcroft replied, "I did not." Why, then, had he opposed the nomination? Senator Leahy asked.

"Well frankly," Senator Ashcroft replied, "I had known Mr. Hormel for a long time. He had recruited me, when I was a student in college, to go to the University of Chicago Law School [where Mr. Hormel was then an assistant dean]. . . . I made a judgment that it would be ill advised to make him an ambassador based on the totality of the record."

After that testimony, Mr. Hormel wrote Senator Leahy that he had not "recruited" Mr. Ashcroft or anyone to Chicago, which needed no recruiting; that he could recall no personal conversation with Mr. Ashcroft then and had not seen him for nearly 34 years. He added that he had asked to talk with Senator Ashcroft in 1998 about the Luxembourg nomination but had gotten no response.

Trying now to appear as someone who will act equitably to all, Senator Ashcroft was not man enough to admit that he had opposed Mr. Hormel because of his sexual orientation. He resorted instead to the false suggestion that he was well acquainted with Mr. Hormel over decades and his "record" was bad.

Supporters of Senator Ashcroft say it is improper to object to him because of his ideology — a president should be free to have cabinet members of whatever ideology he chooses. Even with the greatest latitude for the cabinet, Senator Ashcroft's extreme- right politics make him a dubious choice for attorney general. But what makes him, finally, unfit for the job is that, in Stuart Taylor's words, "A character assassin should not be attorney general."

January 27, 2001

New York Times

Ashcroft Gives Judiciary Panel His Written Replies to Hundreds of Questions
By DAVID JOHNSTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — John Ashcroft submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee today hundreds of written responses to questions as the battle over his nomination for attorney general was swiftly moving to a conclusion, and possibly a vote next week.

Mr. Ashcroft, who was criticized by gay rights groups when he was a Republican senator from Missouri and voted in committee against the appointment of James C. Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg in 1997, repeated an earlier statement about Mr. Hormel.

Mr. Ashcroft said that Mr. Hormel, who is openly gay, could not effectively represent the United States in Luxembourg, a nation that Mr. Ashcroft said was Europe's "most Roman Catholic country."

Most of Mr. Ashcroft's answers to the questions yielded little fresh insight into his thinking about contentious social issues that were fiercely debated in his confirmation hearings, like race, abortion and gun control. In response to many questions, Mr. Ashcroft said only that he would enforce the country's laws, even those he opposed.

Today, the top Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, expressed disappointment over Mr. Ashcroft's written responses.

"The answers are surprisingly unresponsive and often inconsistent with the hearing record and with Senator Ashcroft's own record," Mr. Leahy said in a statement.

Republicans said the questions had been completely and quickly answered.

Senate Republicans have been hoping to have the Ashcroft nomination voted on by the full Senate by Thursday. The current plan is for the Judiciary Committee to vote on Wednesday. After that, Republicans want to move the nomination immediately to the Senate floor for what is expected to be a long debate. Republican staff aides said they wanted the process over before a Republican retreat scheduled to begin at noon on Friday. In addition, they said they wanted to end the deliberations over Mr. Ashcroft's appointment to spare him further attacks.

Asked about the appointment of Mr. Hormel, who in 1998 was named by President Bill Clinton to the ambassadorial post in a maneuver that bypassed Congress, Mr. Ashcroft replied, "Based on the totality of Mr. Hormel's record of public positions and advocacy, I did not believe he would effectively represent the United States in Luxembourg, the most Roman Catholic country in all of Europe."

Mr. Ashcroft also repeated testimony he gave at last week's confirmation hearings, in which he said he would not seek to undermine Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that declared a woman's constitutional right to abortion. In his written answer, Mr. Ashcroft said he regarded the legal issue as settled "through the passage of time and reaffirmation by the Supreme Court."

January 20, 2001
The New York Times

JOURNAL
After the Ball Is Over
By FRANK RICH


Presidents come and go, but a Washington cliché is forever. Today we'll be lectured repeatedly on the poignancy of a president's exit (not that he's actually going anywhere), the promise of a new president's arrival, and on the glory of our Republic. We'll be reminded that there are no tanks in the streets when America changes leaders — only cheesy floats and aural assault weapons in the guise of high school bands.

All true, and yet at this inaugural more than any other in any American's lifetime there is a cognitive dissonance between the patriotic sentiment and the reality. More Americans voted for the candidate who lost the election than the one who won. The Washington Post/ABC News poll says that only 41 percent believe the winner "has a mandate to carry out the agenda" of his campaign. Even before the Florida fracas, the country's black population rejected the Republican candidate (who assiduously tried to attract black voters) by a larger margin than any since Barry Goldwater (who had voted against the Civil Rights Act). And now come calamities ignored in a campaign that dithered about prescription drugs, tax cuts and schools: an energy meltdown in the nation's biggest state, and a possible economic downturn.

George W. Bush seems like an earnest man. When he says he has come to Washington to "change the tone" and "unite, not divide," I don't doubt his sincerity. But so far his actions are those of another entitled boomer who is utterly blind to his own faults. He narcissistically believes things to be so (and his intentions pure) because he says they are.

Change the tone? As Clinton-Gore raised $33 million largely from their corporate masters for their first inaugural, so Bush-Cheney have solicited $35 million from, among others, the securities firms that want to get their hands on your privatized Social Security retirement accounts and the pharmaceutical companies that want to protect the prices of prescription drugs. And already foreign money is making its entrance — in the form of a legal but unsavory $100,000 contribution from the deputy prime minister of Lebanon, channeled through his son.

Now comes the news — reported by the columnist Robert Novak — that John Huang, the convicted Clinton- Gore fund-raiser, repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment in November when questioned in court about his alleged fiscal ties to Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell, the No. 1 opponent of the John McCain crusade for campaign finance reform that Mr. Bush has yet to credibly embrace. (Mr. McConnell is also the husband of Mr. Bush's latest labor secretary-designate, Elaine Chao.)

Change the tone? Hard as it is to imagine that anyone could choose an attorney general as polarizing as the last, Mr. Bush has outdone himself. With a single cabinet pick he has reproduced the rancor that attended the full Clinton legal troika of Reno, Hubbell & Foster.

There's been much debate about whether John Ashcroft is a racist — a hard case to make against a man whose history of playing the race card to pander to voters is balanced by his record of black judicial appointments. But there has not been nearly enough debate about whether our incipient chief legal officer has lied under oath to the Senate.

Perhaps his seeming fudging and reversals of his previous stands on Roe v. Wade and gun control can be rationalized as clever lawyerese. Perhaps some of his evasions can be dismissed as a politician's typical little white lies — and I do mean white — such as when he denies he knew that a magazine he favored with an interview, Southern Partisan, espoused the slaveholding views of Southern partisans. But it took a bolder kind of dissembling to contradict his own paper trail in public office. After he swore that the state of Missouri "had been found guilty of no wrong" in a landmark St. Louis desegregation case and that "both as attorney general and as governor" of the state he had followed "all" court orders in the matter, The Washington Post needed only a day to report the truth: A federal district judge in fact ruled that the state was a "primary constitutional wrongdoer" in the matter and threatened to hold Mr. Ashcroft in contempt for his "continual delay and failure to comply" with court orders.

Mr. Ashcroft may have left even more land mines in his testimony about the businessman, philanthropist and former law school official James Hormel, the Clinton ambassador to Luxembourg whose nomination he had fought. Asked by Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary chairman, if he had opposed Mr. Hormel because Mr. Hormel is gay, Mr. Ashcroft answered, "I did not." Then why did he oppose Mr. Hormel? "Well, frankly, I had known Mr. Hormel for a long time. He had recruited me, when I was a student in college, to go to the University of Chicago Law School," Mr. Ashcroft testified, before adding a cryptic answer he would repeat two times as Mr. Leahy pressed him: "I made a judgment that it would be ill advised to make him ambassador based on the totality of the record."

The implication of this creepy testimony is that Mr. Ashcroft, having known the 68-year-old Mr. Hormel for decades, had some goods on him. The use of the word "recruit" by Mr. Ashcroft also had a loaded connotation in context, since it's common for those on the religious right who argue (as Mr. Ashcroft does) that sexual orientation is a choice to accuse homosexuals of "recruiting" the young.

No senator followed up Mr. Ashcroft's testimony about Mr. Hormel, who, unlike another subject of an Ashcroft character assassination, Judge Ronnie White, was not invited to testify at the hearings. I located Mr. Hormel by phone in Washington, where he had traveled for final meetings at the State Department after concluding his service in Luxembourg. He strongly disputed Mr. Ashcroft's version of events.

"I don't recall ever recruiting anybody for the University of Chicago," Mr. Hormel said in our conversation Wednesday night. As an assistant dean involved with admissions, he says, he might have met Mr. Ashcroft in passing while touring campuses to give talks to prospective law school applicants, or in later office visits about grades or curriculum. But, Mr. Hormel quickly adds, he doesn't recall "a single conversation with John Ashcroft." Nor has Mr. Hormel seen him in the three decades since; Mr. Ashcroft didn't have the courtesy to respond to repeated requests for a meeting during Mr. Hormel's own confirmation process and didn't bother to attend Mr. Hormel's hearing before opposing him.

"I think he made insinuations which would lead people to have a complete misunderstanding of my very limited relationship with him," Mr. Hormel says. "I fear that there was an inference he created that he knew me and based on that knowledge he came to the conclusion I wasn't fit to become an ambassador. I find that very disturbing. He kept repeating the phrase `the totality of the record.' I don't know what record he's talking about. I don't know of anything I've ever done that's been called unethical." The record that Mr. Ashcroft so casually smeared includes an appointment to the U.N. in 1996 that was confirmed by the Foreign Relations Committee on which Mr. Ashcroft then sat.

Since Mr. Bush could easily have avoided the divisiveness of the Ashcroft choice by picking an equally conservative attorney general with less baggage, some of his opponents will start calling him "stupid" again. That seems unfair. Mr. Bush's real problem is arrogance — he thinks we are stupid. He thinks that if he vouches incessantly for the "good heart" of a John Ashcroft, that settles it. It hasn't; polls showed an even split on the nomination well before the hearings. He thinks that if he fills the stage with black faces at a white convention and poses incessantly with black schoolkids and talks about being the "inclusive" president "of everybody," he'll persuade minority voters he's compassionate. He hasn't.

George W. Bush likes to boast that he doesn't watch TV. He didn't even tune in as the nation's highest court debated his fate, leaving his princely retainers to bring him bulletins. Maybe it's time for him to start listening; he might even learn why so many Americans aren't taking his word for John Ashcroft's "heart." I don't doubt that our new president will give a poetic Inaugural Address today, but if he remains out of touch with the country, he will not be able to govern tomorrow.

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on John Ashcroft
January 16, 2001
Transcript by CNN

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0101/16/se.06.html
ASHCROFT: [Dr. Satcher] lobbied Congress to continue an anonymous study testing newborn infants' blood for the AIDS virus, without informing the mother if the test was positive. Now, I have real problems with a situation where someone wants to be the surgeon general of the United States, wants to learn about whether or not there's AIDS present in a medical situation, and not tell the people involved about the AIDS virus.

This is a matter of deep concern to me. The idea of sending fatally infected babies home with their unwitting mothers, even after a treatment had been identified for AIDS, to me was an idea that was unacceptable for an individual who wanted to be the leader in terms of the medical community and a role model in the United States. It was on those grounds that I made the decision.

CNN's Crossfire, January 16, 2001
Bill Press Exchange with Senator Arlen Specter

PRESS: Senator Specter, Senator Ashcroft was also asked today, in addition to Bill Lann Lee, about his opposition to David Satcher as attorney general. I was surprised, he made a very serious charge. He said he voted against him because General Satcher was guilty ... of sending AIDS infected babies home without telling their mothers... Now, I checked today after the hearing. That program was not begun by David Satcher. It was actually done under Ronald Reagan in 1988 to test the spread of AIDS in this country, and it was ended by Doctor Satcher in 1995, two years before he was nominated as surgeon general. Again, wasn't that a bogus, and unfair charge on Ashcroft's part?

SPECTER: Well, Bill, nobody challenged him at the hearing. John Ashcroft...

PRESS: I am now.

SPECTER: Well, where is John Ashcroft? Let's see if he can respond to it. The issue was raised about Doctor Satcher's nomination, and Senator Ashcroft gave very specific reasons, saying that on this testing, if they found the child was infected with AIDS, they did not tell the parents. And he had very specific reasons that what -- at least according to his representation -- and I don't know if he was right, wrong, or indifferent. But I do know Doctor Satcher's nomination was brought up by a questioner, and Ashcroft answered, and that was the end of it.

PRESS: But here's what I find troubling, is -- and by the way, at the time, Bill Frist, the only... physician in the Senate, and a Republican, said that what Doctor Satcher did was ethically correct, that the charges were bogus, and it was pure politics, had nothing to do with the real issue. And so, you get with David Satcher, and with Ronnie White, and with Bill Lann Lee -- you always get these far-reaching reasons that Ashcroft comes up with for opposing some minority nominee. Doesn't that -- isn't that troubling?

OPENING ARGUMENT: A character assassin should not be Attorney General

By Stuart Taylor Jr., National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 12, 2001

Former Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., is an able and accomplished man who won the respect of many Senate colleagues in both parties. But he is unfit to be Attorney General. The reason is that during an important debate on a sensitive matter, then-Sen. Ashcroft abused the power of his office by descending to demagoguery, dishonesty, and character assassination.

The debate was over President Clinton's nomination of Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White to become a federal district judge. Although too liberal to be picked by a Republican President, White had shown himself to be an honest, skilled, and sometimes eloquent jurist, well within the moderate mainstream. But Ashcroft, leaning hard on Republican Senators who would otherwise have voted to confirm, engineered a 54-45 party-line vote on Oct. 5, 1999, to reject White's nomination. Worse, Ashcroft claimed on the Senate floor that Judge White had "a serious bias against... the death penalty"; that he was "pro-criminal and activist, [and would] push law in a pro-criminal direction"; and that he had "a tremendous bent toward criminal activity." The first statement was a wild exaggeration. The second was a demagogic distortion. The third was a malicious smear.

Ashcroft is not the man to head the Justice Department. The job is vested with such vast authority over the lives of people great and small, and such symbolic importance, that the minimum qualifications should include honesty, fair-mindedness, and judicious self-restraint in the exercise of power. Every new President is entitled to Senate deference in choosing his Cabinet, even when the nominee's policy views draw bitter liberal or conservative opposition. (Linda Chavez might have become a distinguished Labor Secretary but for her sad mistake of failing to tell Bush vetters up front what they needed to know about her illegal-immigrant issue.) But no President is entitled to put a character assassin in charge of law enforcement.

All this would be true even if Judge White were white, if Ashcroft had not expressed such fondness for the Confederacy, if race were not an issue, and if Ashcroft were in tune with the Bush pledge to be a uniter, not a divider. But White is black. The racial context makes Ashcroft's orchestration of a floor vote against a judicial nominee, the first since 1987 (when Robert H. Bork's Supreme Court nomination went down), all the more deplorable. And Ashcroft's confrontational advocacy of absolutist views makes him a divider, not a uniter.

This is not to endorse the unfounded and tiresomely irresponsible suggestions by some liberal critics that Ashcroft's attacks on Judge White were motivated by racial bias or hostility to antidiscrimination laws. Nor is it to join the claque who would fight any conservative nominee for Justice as racially insensitive and divisive. But it does appear that Ashcroft was deliberately engaging in inflammatory racial politics -- in part to boost his own 2000 re-election prospects by hanging the "pro-criminal" label both on Judge White and on then-Gov. Mel Carnahan, who had appointed White and was gunning for Ashcroft's Senate seat. Ashcroft must have known that accusing a black judge (falsely) of being "pro-criminal" and of "a tremendous bent toward criminal activity" would stir the worst instincts of those voters who stereotype criminality as black.

One result of Ashcroft's reckless roiling of racial tensions is that he would have especially low credibility with the vast majority of African-Americans, including moderates and conservatives who eschew the race-baiting rhetoric of victimologists such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Indeed, people who hope to see the Justice Department move away from its long-standing advocacy of race-based affirmative action preferences (as I do) should wonder: Can John Ashcroft be a credible advocate of making the law more colorblind? I doubt it.

Deceptive rhetoric aside, is Ronnie White soft on crime? Not unless one equates measured concern for civil liberties with softness. According to Justice Department numbers, White, as of October 1999, had voted to uphold 41 (almost 70 percent) of the 59 death sentences he had reviewed. He voted to reverse the other 18, including 10 that were unanimously reversed and just three in which he was the only dissenter. (Some say that White reviewed 61 death sentences and voted to reverse 20.) His rate of affirmance was only marginally lower than the 75 percent to 81 percent averages of the five current Missouri Supreme Court judges whom Ashcroft himself appointed when he was governor

Ashcroft stressed that Judge White had dissented from decisions affirming death sentences four times as often as any Ashcroft-appointed colleague. True. But does this suggest that White would "push law in a pro-criminal direction," as Ashcroft said -- or that Ashcroft appointees were rubber-stamping unfair trials?

The two dissents most directly assailed by Ashcroft in fact exude moderation and care in dealing with the tension between crime-fighting and civil liberties. In a 1998 decision, the majority upheld the murder convictions and death sentence of a previously law-abiding Vietnam veteran named James Johnson, who had suddenly turned violent. He stalked and killed a sheriff, two deputies, and another sheriff's wife in a horrifying succession of shootings that erupted out of a domestic dispute. The only defense was insanity. The immediate issue was whether Johnson should get a new trial, after which he would either go back to death row or be locked up in a mental hospital.

If Johnson "was in control of his faculties when he went on this murderous rampage," Judge White wrote, "then he assuredly deserves the death sentence he was given." But the jury's consideration of the insanity defense had been skewed by an egregious blunder. Johnson's court-appointed attorney had begun by stressing that a rope-and-tin-can "perimeter" around Johnson's garage was evidence that he had been under a delusion that he was back in Vietnam, at war. This was a gift to the prosecution, which blew the back-in-Vietnam strategy to bits by showing that the police had set up the perimeter.

Both Judge White and his colleagues faulted the defense attorney (for inadequate investigation) as well as the prosecution (for leaving the defense attorney with a false impression of the facts). They differed only on whether there was a "reasonable probability" that the jury might otherwise have found Johnson insane. The majority said no. Judge White said yes. His conclusion was plausible, debatable, highly unpopular (especially among police), and (for that reason) courageous. For Ashcroft to call it "pro-criminal" was obscene.

In the second case, one Brian Kinder was sentenced to die for a heinous rape-murder. Judge White's "only basis" for voting to give Kinder a new trial, Ashcroft claimed, was that the trial judge had said he was "opposed to affirmative action." False. In fact, Judge White's dissent termed that comment (made in a campaign press release) "irrelevant to the issue of bias." Instead he stressed another, "indefensibly racist" assertion in which the trial judge had contrasted "minorities" with "hard-working taxpayers." This cast grave doubt on the impartiality of a judge who was to try a black man for murder in just six days, Judge White concluded. His dissent was far more candid and convincing than the majority opinion.

Pro-criminal? Some police groups, including 77 of Missouri's 114 sheriffs, criticized Judge White's record. But other law enforcement officials praised him as a good judge and "an upright, fine individual," in the words of Carl Wolf, president of the Missouri Police Chiefs Association.

The smearing of Judge White makes the many testimonials to Ashcroft's integrity ring a bit hollow. But quite apart from that episode, it was most unwise for President-elect Bush to choose Ashcroft for Attorney General. The reason is that Ashcroft is an uncompromising absolutist with a bellicose approach to issues ranging from gay rights and gun control to abortion (which would be a crime, if Ashcroft had his way, even in cases of rape and incest). He is also dead wrong (in my view) on major issues, including his aggressive push to cram even more nonviolent, small-time offenders who pose no threat to society into our prison-industrial complex, which has already mushroomed to 2 million inmates.

What would I be saying if it were President-elect Al Gore trying to put the Justice Department under (say) Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. -- who smeared another judicial nominee (in 1987) by saying: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids... "

I would be saying that a character assassin should not be Attorney General. How about you?


(eek) I found this on the internet , nothing printed here is a comment made by me. I take no partisanship to what was printed, just thought I would share it with everyone.
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I'd rather live my life believeing there is God and die to find out their isn't . Than to live my life as if their wasn't God and die to find out there is ! WHITFIELD
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