Ashcroft under fire for NRB speech
Thought the biggest controversy at last week's National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville was the ousting of president Wayne Pederson? Not necessarily. Attorney General John Ashcroft's address has been making headlines all week. "The call to defend civilization from terrorism resonates from a deeper source than our legal or even our political institutions," he said. "Civilized individuals—Christians, Jews and Muslims—all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of his creation. … We are a nation called to defend freedom—a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God." (The full text of Ashcroft's prepared remarks is available at the Department of Justice site, though it's unclear how much the attorney general's actual speech strayed from his written draft.) The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other media gave the speech significant coverage, and now come the columns and analysis pieces.

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At least the Chronicle's piece is put clearly in the opinion pages. The Chicago Tribune makes many of the same accusations, but puts them in the news pages. "Although President Bush has declared often that the war on terrorism is not a fight against Islam, the rhetoric has taken on an unmistakable religious tone in recent weeks as leading figures inside and outside government have invoked God, decried 'evil' and quoted the Bible," writes Naftali Bendavid. "This tone is accentuated by the strong religious convictions of Bush and Ashcroft, and it echoes an American moralism that historians say has cropped up repeatedly in times of crisis. Religious ...