By John Buethe

In front of a smaller crowd than expected, John Ashcroft spoke on topics ranging from torture to wiretapping to freedom in a post Sept. 11 world.

Students Fostering Conservative Thought and College Republicans co-sponsored the event, which brought an estimated 350 people to the Steven B. Humphrey Auditorium at
St John’s.

Ashcroft was the 79th United States Attorney General, who served during the first term of President George W. Bush from 2001 until 2005.

The campus organizations worked through the Young American Foundation (YAF), a national conservative-based organization that works with student groups across the country to bring iconic speakers to their campuses. YAF pays for the speaker’s hotel room and plane ticket.

According to the YAF Web site, Ashcroft charges more than $20,000 to speak. However, SFCT President Kurt Sorenson says the campus groups received “a lot” of financial help in paying for Ashcroft’s bill from YAF and other external conservative organizations.

The total cost to SFCT and College Republicans to bring Ashcroft to CSB/SJU has not yet been calculated, Sorenson said.

Organized dissent

Before Ashcroft lectured, members of College Democrats, Amnesty International and Campus Ministry protested outside the SBH.

Junior Ashleigh Leitch, the newly-elected co-chair of the College Democrats for next fall, said the protest was registered with SJU’s Life Safety Department, and it intent was to bring people to the lecture, not drive them away.

“We protested as a way for students to go see General Ashcroft and ask intelligent questions in a respectful way,” Leitch said. “We wanted him to answer for the other side of his policies (like) torture, suspension of habeas corpus and Guantanamo Bay … those were are three points of focus.”

Leitch said though College Democrats have focused their energies on elections this past year as opposed to organizing lectures on campus, they plan to invite their own speakers to CSB/SJU next fall.

Meeting Ashcroft on a personal level

Sorenson, who drove Ashcroft to and from St. John’s, said the former Attorney General arrived at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at around 1:50 p.m., and, when Sorenson asked Ashcroft if he wanted to go to his Minneapolis hotel room or directly up to SJU, Ashcroft said, “show me Minnesota.”

Sorenson said he and a former SJU student took Ashcroft to the site of the former 35W Bridge in Minneapolis, which gained national notoriety after it collapsed last August.

While at St. John’s, Sorenson said he and the former student took Ashcroft on a walking tour of the Abbey and the Great Hall, as well as a brief driving tour of the St. John’s campus before taking him to a dinner with 30 members of SFCT, College Republicans and other select members of the CSB/SJU community at Stonehouse Tavern, an upper-end restaurant in St. Joseph.

“(Speaking with Ashcroft) was like going out with my grandpa,” Sorenson said. “He is a really easy, relaxed guy.”

Light but good crowd

Junior Colman Silbernagle of SFCT said he “would like to have seen more people there,” and attributes the less-than-expected turnout on the rain, the fact there was another speaker on campus that night and the reputation of the speaker on campus.

“I am sure there is an aspect of people not knowing who Mr. Ashcroft is,” Silbernagle said.

Silbernagle, however, said he thought the students who did attend were of high caliber.

“I was pleased with what questions were brought forward,” Silbernagle said. “People were asking them in a very respectful manner. Mr. Ashcroft did an excellent job answering them.”

Like Silbernagle, Sorenson said was pleased with the Ashcroft’s reception.

“It was the most attended event (the SFCT) had all year,” Sorenson said.

“We had a very engaged crowed.”

After the speech, as Sorenson was driving Ashcroft back to his Minneapolis hotel room he said Ashcroft said he “’had not had a student body with such respectful and intelligent questions.’”

Through YAF, SFCT has booked Liam Fox, the Shadow Defense Minister of Great Britain, for the fall, and are considering bringing Ben Stein, a political pundit, or Karl Rove, the former Deputy of Staff of the Bush Administration, to the campus spring, 2009, Sorenson said.

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