Julian Borger in Washington
Monday March 4, 2002
Since John Ashcroft became US attorney general last year, workers at the
department of justice have become accustomed to his daily prayer meetings, but
some are now drawing the line at having to sing patriotic songs penned by their
idiosyncratic boss.
Mr Ashcroft, a devout Christian and a grittily determined singer, went public
with one of his works last month, when he surprised an audience at a North
Carolina seminary with a rendition of Let the Eagle Soar, a tribute to
America's virtues, which continues: "Like she's never soared before, from rocky
coast to golden shore, let the mighty eagle soar," and so on for four minutes.
The performance (which can be seen and heard at cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25
ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html) was accompanied only by taped music, but Mr
Ashcroft's staff are complaining that printed versions of the song are being
distributed at meetings so that they will be able to join in.
When asked why she opposed the workplace singalong, one of the department's
lawyers said: "Have you heard the song? It really sucks."
A group of Hispanic justice department employees were recently summoned to see
the attorney general, and went along hoping that their boss might be making a
special effort to promote diversity in the department's higher ranks.
Instead, they were asked to provide a hasty Spanish lesson to give the secretary
a few phrases to use on a foreign delegation the next day. The Hispanic staff
were then handed printed copies of Let the Eagle Soar and asked for volunteers
to translate it.
This is not the first time Mr Ashcroft's subordinates have realised that this
attorney general is unlike ordinary politicians. Each time he has been sworn in
to political office, he is anointed with cooking oil (in the manner of King
David, as he points out in his memoirs Lessons from a Father to His Son).
When Mr Ashcroft was in the Senate, the duty was performed by his father, a
senior minister in a church specialising in speaking in tongues, the
Pentecostal Assemblies of God. When he became attorney general, Clarence
Thomas, a supreme court justice, did the honours.
In January, a pair of 12ft statues in the atrium of a justice department
building were covered by a blue curtain, on orders from Mr Ashcroft's office
because the female figure Spirit of Justice was bare-breasted, and the body of
her male partner, Majesty of Law, was not sufficiently covered by his toga.
The cover-up has provoked an anti-Ashcroft campaign by the singer and film star
Cher, who has toured the media circuit denouncing his puritanism. She asked the
Washington Post: "What are we going to do next? Put shorts on the statue of
David, put an 1880s bathing suit on Venus Rising and a shirt on the Venus de
Milo?"
Perhaps the most bizarre wrinkle in the Ashcroft enigma emerged in November when
Andrew Tobias, the Democratic Party treasurer and a financial writer, published
an article on his website accusing the attorney general of harbouring
superstitions about tabby cats.
According to the Tobias article, advance teams for an Ashcroft visit to the US
embassy in the Hague asked anxiously if there were tabby cats (or calico cats
as they are known in the US) on the premises.
"Their boss, they explained, believes calico cats are signs of the devil," Mr
Tobias reported.
When asked about the veracity of the report, the justice department said that it
had made Mr Ashcroft laugh. There has been no further comment on the matter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,661458,00.html
--
"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas -- that says, fool
me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
http://www.diymedia.net/audio/mp3/tdntb-bushwack2.mp3
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