Hightower Lowdown

Woodrow Wilson noted that some people elected to high office grow with the job, while others simply swell. America’s new attorney general, John Ashcroft, has swollen up like roadkill on a blistering hot day.

Using terrorism as his excuse, Ashcroft has defiled our Constitution, engaged in massive racial profiling, jailed thousands of innocent people, arbitrarily set up secret star chambers that subvert our judicial system, and made such a mockery of good American police work that his autocratic tactics have been rejected by some of his own FBI officials, local police departments, and our European allies.

While all this has helped him nab exactly one alleged terrorist, he has managed to come down hard on a very large group: U.S. citizens who dare to criticize him!

Like a tinhorn tyrant, Ashcroft recently proclaimed before a Senate committee that anyone who even raises questions about the administration’s antiterrorism blundering is giving aid to terrorists and providing “ammunition to America’s enemies.”

Johnny needs to review America 101. What undermines democracy is not when the public criticizes leaders, but when leaders try to muzzle the public. You can’t unify people by labeling anyone who disagrees with you a traitor. That’s dictatorship, not democracy.