John Ashcroft’s Permanent Campaign  In the liberal imagination
Attorney General John Ashcroft is an authoritarian and a
religious zealot, bent on sacrificing liberty to achieve the
illusion of safety from terror. But those who see Ashcroft as a
zealot are missing Ashcroft the canny politician—a man beholden
to both his polls and his God  By Jeffrey Rosen Also see:
Interviews: "The Softer Side of Ashcroft" (March 12, 2004)
Jeffrey Rosen argues that it is not social conservatism but a
quest for popular approval that drives John Ashcroft's public
life.  After three years in office John Ashcroft, the Attorney
General of the United States, has provoked an impressively
bipartisan chorus of invective. From the civil-libertarian left
to the libertarian right, his critics agree that he has done
more to destroy American liberties than any other Attorney
General since A. Mitchell Palmer, who presided over the Red
scares of 1919 and 1920. No Democratic presidential candidate
has missed the chance to denounce him in the