1/26/01 10:10 a.m.
Hormel Objects to Ashcroft. Do We Care?
The media’s short-term memory.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor----------------lopezk@ix.netcom.com

esterday James Hormel, former U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg came out in opposition to the confirmation of John Ashcroft as attorney general.

"I get no satisfaction from this,'' Hormel told the Associated Press. "I am extremely disturbed that he was nominated for this very sensitive post, and it concerns me greatly that he might be serving as attorney general, given his stated positions on a variety of issues.''

Evidently, Americans have some reason to care about Hormel's sense of satisfaction with President Bush's cabinet pick.

Of course, the reason that Hormel is an expert on Ashcroft, is because Ashcroft dared to opposed him — "an openly gay" man (as every news story reminds us), when he was being considered to be the United States ambassador to Luxembourg. (Ultimately, President Clinton bypassed the Senate, appointing him ambassador during Memorial Day recess in 1999.)

And since Hormel was America's first "openly gay" ambassador, Ashcroft is a homophobe. Hormel's case against Ashcroft is bolstered by an accusation from a Democrat that in 1985, when interviewing for a job in Missouri, the then-governor John Ashcroft asked applicant Paul Offner, "Do you have the same sexual preference as most men?'' Ashcroft denies the accusation. (Seems the real question to Ashcroft should be why he would ever consider Offner for a job in the first place. Offner, a former Democratic state senator, would later serve on Clinton's transition team and Mrs. Clinton's infamous health-care task force.)

Hormel claims that Ashcroft misled the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, when he said that his opposition to Hormel was based on the "totality of the record." Hormel, who evidently knows the heart of John Ashcroft, says that's a lie. Ashcroft just doesn't like gays.

But what the new stories forget to mention is why Hormel's nomination was opposed — by senators and many religious, particularly Catholic, groups. Hormel was nominated and appointed by Bill Clinton to be ambassador to a country that is 95.1% Catholic. The opposition was not, contrary to popular opinion, that he is gay. Groups opposed him because in his public life has proved to be vehemently anti-Catholic.

Hormel, for example, refused to condemn the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," a notorious San Francisco group of drag queens who dress as nuns. The Sisters marched in a 1996 gay-pride parade. While providing commentary for a local TV news station, Hormel thought they were hysterical.

During his confirmation hearings, Sen. Tim Hutchinson (graduate of the "anti-Catholic" Bob Jones University) gave Hormel the opportunity to distance himself from the group's activities. Hormel refused.

Also, as had been reported at the time, there's the issue of a library in his name in San Francisco, to which he donated a book, which, as one observer described it, is "a coloring book with, with female genitalia. It's called the — well, it starts with a 'C' and it's four letters. It's the 'Blank' Coloring Book." Members of Congress were made aware of this detail at the time of his nomination, too.

Not exactly the kind of guy a decent president would want to send off to a country that's almost entirely Roman Catholic. At the time, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania likened it to sending an anti-Semite to be U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The media, however, has a very short-term memory. The New York Times, for example, in its piece today on Hormel's case against Ashcroft, didn't mention any of these details from Hormel's record.