Let this eagle fly off.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Let the eagle soar. Let him soar swiftly out the door. The nation doesn't need him any more. Let the mighty eagle soar.

With apologies to Attorney General John Ashcroft, who penned and first performed his original patriotic tune "Let the Eagle Soar" at a North Carolina seminary in 2002.

Oregonians would be particularly happy to see Ashcroft soar out of President Bush's Cabinet and land in a less-intrusive perch. The controversial attorney general, who has regularly sought to thwart the wishes of a majority of Oregon's voters, is rumored to be within weeks of submitting his resignation.

Ashcroft is said to be exhausted and stressed out. That's hardly surprising, given the demands of minding the morals of the American public, not to mention the energy it takes to try to overturn the Bill of Rights every couple of months.

The ultraconservative Ashcroft decided early in his tenure that Oregonians were wrong to twice approve the Death With Dignity Act. The law authorizes Oregon physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs on the request of terminally ill patients who meet strict criteria.

The "Ashcroft Directive" declared in 2002 that suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose." His directive reversed a 1998 opinion by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and allowed the Justice Department to prohibit Oregon doctors from issuing any lethal prescriptions on grounds that the drugs did not qualify as medication under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Ashcroft threatened to prosecute and revoke the licenses of physicians who obeyed Oregon's law. But the state of Oregon refused to knuckle under. Trial and appellate courts affirmed that the Controlled Substances Act does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice.

The energetic attorney general also has big problems with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and similar laws in eight other states. But so far, the Justice Department has been shut out in the courts in its efforts to overturn the state laws.

At the national level, Ashcroft's tenure has been characterized by a combination of embarrassing prudishness and relentless attacks on civil liberties. He'll be forever memorialized on late-night talk shows for ordering the installation of modesty cloaks on two seminude art deco statues at the Justice Depart- ment.

Unfortunately, he'll also be remembered for indiscriminately rounding up thousands of mostly Muslim immigrants in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and incarcerating some of them without access to courts or lawyers. The overzealous detentions drew a sharp rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Bush should let this eagle quietly soar into civilian life. By signalling that he's burned out and ready to fly the coop, Ashcroft has offered the president a significant opportunity to restore an appropriate level of moderation to his Cabinet.