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Jewish World Review Jan. 22, 2001 / 27 Teves, 5761
Michael Ledeen
We should be ashamed of them (they are seemingly beneath shame), and we
should unhesitatingly brand them as bigots, unworthy of high office.
Just a few months ago, these pious defenders of Americanism launched a
preemptive strike against anyone who might insinuate that Joe Lieberman
might find his core beliefs in conflict with his job-to-be as vice president.
At that time, they denounced anyone with such a crazy idea as an anti-Semite,
if not an outright Nazi, just as they have long condemned anyone who voiced
the canard that no American Jew could defend American interests in the
event of conflict or disagreement with the state of Israel.
But they have brazenly discarded these fine rules of decency and common
sense in the case of a conservative Christian like Ashcroft, and this
foul hypocrisy demands close examination. Their zealous persecution of
Ashcroft for an imagined dual loyalty is not merely political opportunism,
not just a way to frighten their own faithful with the specter of runaway
right-wing fanaticism, not only the latest fund-raising scare tactic.
It is certainly all that, but it is more. It is a primal scream from radical
secularists who cringe at the sight of a person of faith, for they want
all such persons — and their core beliefs — banned from the
public square, driven from the schools, censored on the pages of the intellectual
journals and the evening news broadcasts. They have convinced themselves,
and a majority of the chatterers and scribblers, that the Constitution
is an anti-religious tract, and that religious people are dangerous to
the survival of the republic.
They are wrong. Indeed, their tirades against Ashcroft's religiosity are
in direct violation of Article 6 of the Constitution, which says: "No
religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office
or public trust under the United States." Thus, Ashcroft's beliefs are
not proper subjects for Senatorial inquiry in the matter of his confirmation,
any more than critics of Lieberman were entitled to parse his Sabbath
prayers for grounds to oppose his candidacy. "No religious test" means
just that.
Moreover, Ashcroft's inquisitioners are at odds with the convictions of
the American people, who have long been recognized as the most religious
people in the world, and who violate one of the most cherished principles
of radical secularism and contemporary sociology: the quaint conviction
that societies become less religious as they become more "developed."
America is at once the most religious and the most developed society on
earth. The anti-religion crowd in the Senate, and their fellow provocateurs
in the media and the academy are the real foes of Americanism.
We should be pleased to see men and women of strong religious conviction
named to high office, for they are the most reliable guarantors of our
democracy. As Alexis de Tocqueville, the most profound student of American
democracy, wrote nearly two hundred years ago:
It is particularly painful to see Jews like Sen. Schumer, and Catholics like Sen. Kennedy denounce religious faith in others, after fighting so many battles for people of their own faiths. Does Kennedy not remember his late brother, the sainted John Fitzgerald, appearing before the Baptists to assure them that he would not be taking orders from Vatican City? How dare he apply to Ashcroft the properly discredited standard that was so foully hurled at his brother? And how dare Schumer permit accusations of dual loyalty to be leveled against a Christian, when he would rage at similar charges against a Jew?
The Constitution forbids it, common sense rejects it, and the Senate should
denounce it. The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will have to do
a lot of penance to restore their
01/11/00: A fitting close to the Clinton years
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