Ashcroft's Way
America's top cop has been demonized and lionized. He's a complex guy all right, just not the guy everyone thinks he is
Ashcroft, colleagues say, is focused, hardworking, and dedicated. "I've always felt that he sincerely believed in the trusteeship element of public service and was very concerned about living up to his obligation," says Michael Chertoff, who served as Ashcroft's criminal-division chief and is now a federal judge. Chuck Rosenberg, a former career prosecutor, is counselor to Ashcroft. "If you force me to pick one word to describe him," Rosenberg says, "it's integrity. He holds that as his greatest and most important value. He exudes it." A former administration official who knows the attorney general well agrees, but with an important caveat. As Ashcroft approaches "the more political aspects of the job," this man says, "he's still got the strident partisan senatorial mind-set firmly in place. There's almost a Jekyll and Hyde quality."
Rocking back in a comfortable leather armchair in his paneled office on the fifth floor of the Justice Department, Ashcroft was amused by such comments. "I don't think you're dealing with a split personality," he joked. Relaxed in loafers and shirt sleeves, he is taller than he seems in his public appearances and on television. Webs of wrinkles around puffy eyes betray the long days and heavy workload. Asked if he believes he has politicized the Justice Department, Ashcroft, suddenly, seemed deeply troubled. "That sounds like you're describing a different planet," he said. He elaborated, explaining that after his service as governor and attorney general in Missouri and his one term in Congress as junior senator there, he was happy to leave the political wars behind. "The president relieved me of the responsibility to think politically when I came here. . . . And I rejoice in that fact in many respects."
Distortions. Who is John Ashcroft, then, and why has he become such a lightning rod? Dick Foth is Ashcroft's best friend. They have known each other for 54 years, but Foth allows that while he knows the answer to the first question, he is at a loss to answer the second. Ashcroft is an avid hiker, and one day last fall he, Foth, and a few friends were walking along the grassy Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. It was a gorgeous day, and the sun was just setting, Foth recalls, when they happened upon a group of teenagers from the Future Farmers of America. "When John walked up the steps, the kids broke into applause," Foth recalls. "When people meet him personally in an informal setting, they find him likable, engaging, and funny." And yet, Foth marvels, his friend's public image gets "exponentially distorted, like the parlor game of Gossip." Ashcroft is as puzzled as anyone by the level of cognitive dissonance. "When I read some of those descriptions" in the press, he said, "I get scared of me."
The son of Pentecostal missionaries, Ashcroft is a deeply religious man who says he has tried to live his life on the principle that actions have consequences and without consequences, life is meaningless. His mother, the daughter of a Great Lakes sea captain, taught him self-sufficiency. His father prayed daily, asking God to help his three sons do something "noble" each day. During World War II, when Ashcroft's father was denied a job as a military chaplain because of his lack of formal education, he vowed never to let that happen to his sons, and he provided all of them with a strong education. Young John was a gifted athlete, earned a degree in history but eschewed a career in the ministry, obtaining a law degree instead. Foth says critics err when they characterize Ashcroft as "right wing" or "religious." "He was born in Chicago, got an education at Yale and the University of Chicago, and was raised in the Ozarks," Foth says. "He's a very multifaceted man."
advertisement
