Edition: U.S. / Global  An Unfit Nominee  Published: December
30, 2000  BOSTON -- Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri is on the
extreme right of American politics. As a member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee he worked to block the confirmation process,
without a hearing, of any judicial nominee he suspected of the
faintest liberal taint. He sought to outlaw abortions even for
victims of rape or incest.  His rigid ideology makes him a
strange choice to be attorney general of the United States. But
for anyone who reveres that office, as I do, one particular
episode shows that Senator Ashcroft is unfit to hold it. He
knowingly, for political reasons, uttered vicious falsehoods
about a respected judge.  The episode arose from the nomination
of a Missouri Supreme Court justice, Ronnie White, to be a
federal district judge. The Judiciary Committee approved him.
But when the nomination came to the Senate floor, the Republican
majority defeated it at Senator Ashcroft's urging.  As his
reasons for killing the nominati