Henry J. Waters III, the publisher of the Columbia Daily Tribune, gives a tribute to retiring Attorney General John Ashcroft:

I will not let this moment pass without a respectful farewell to my old friend John.

John Ashcroft, that is.

Among my liberal buddies, I would be more popular if I wrote a negative review of his term as U.S. attorney general. At least, I could say nothing, they might think, letting him drift out of public view as quickly and quietly as possible - good riddance.

But, no. That’s not my own impression of Ashcroft’s service to the Missouri and the nation, which on balance is positive.

We always knew he was an overt evangelical Christian, displaying his personal religious instincts more openly than most public officials. This is vaguely troublesome to many of us who are more comfortable with an entirely secular government. But through his years as state auditor, governor, U.S. senator and now U.S. attorney general, he never improperly mixed his religion with his conduct in office, quite an accomplishment for one of his strongly sectarian views.

The remainder is also worth reading.

Farewell to the most reviled man in America. I know that Mr. Ashcroft made some mistakes during his tenure as AG, but nothing to deserve the scorn and vitrol that has been fired at his person since he accepted the nomination. In my opinion, he did a solid job in the position and most of the evil acts attributed to him (like covering up statues) were more legend than fact.

It is nice to see positive words toward the man from a liberal publisher.