Bush wins Senate fight to ratify controversial Attorney General

President Bush yesterday won a significant political victory in securing ratification for his deeply controversial nominee for Attorney General and ending the most vitriolic Cabinet appointment struggle since the Senate in 1989 rebuffed the nomination of another former senator, John Tower, as defence secretary. Senators voted by 58 to 42 to confirm the former Senator and Governor of Missouri, Mr John Ashcroft (58), after an impassioned debate in which Democrats and Republicans traded claim and counterclaim about a deeply conservative Evangelical, an opponent of abortion and supporter of gun owners' rights. Eight Democrats voted for him.

Ahead of the vote Democrats were hoping for a symbolic 40 votes as a warning shot across the bows of the new Attorney General, particularly in respect of judicial nominations, which require a two-thirds majority.

Mr Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a Utah Republican, charged that Mr Ashcroft had been subjected to unwarranted attacks that were largely based on a rejection of his religious views. "Is it getting to the point where only pro-choice people can serve as Attorney General?" he asked.

Massachusetts Democrat Mr Ted Kennedy read a 30-page statement in opposition to Mr Ashcroft on the Senate floor on Wednesday evening. "When a president nominates a person to serve in his Cabinet, the presumption is rightly in favour of the nominee," Mr Kennedy said. "But Senator Ashcroft has a long and detailed record of relentless opposition to fundamental issues of civil rights. . . and the people of this country deserve better." Speaking again yesterday, he claimed Mr Ashcroft had repeatedly misled the Senate in his testimony.

Among the Democrats who endorsed Mr Ashcroft's nomination, were Connecticut's Mr Christopher Dodd, who declared his intention in less than glowing terms. While there is evidence Mr Ashcroft "can be a healer", Mr Dodd said, "I remain concerned that he will, as he appears to have done at times in the past, submit to the temptation to divide Americans along racial lines." Still, Mr Dodd and others said, Mr Ashcroft deserved the benefit of the doubt in the debate over whether he would keep his promise to enforce the law or, because of a conservative ideology deeply rooted in his religious faith, undermine laws with which he disagreed.