WEDNESDAY’S New York Times carried a front-page article by Neil A. Lewis headlined “Ashcroft’s Terrorism Policies Dismay Some Conservatives.” Lewis asserts that Attorney General John Ashcroft is becoming unpopular with religious conservatives who fear that their organizations may be investigated under new anti-terror legislation. Can this possibly be true?

To make his case, Lewis quotes Grover Norquist, the Washington lobbyist and head of Americans for Tax Reform, as saying, Ashcroft’s “religious base is now quite troubled by what he’s done.” And he quotes Paul Weyrich–a somewhat eccentric conservative activist whose star shone brightest in the late 1970s and early 1980s–as saying, “There is suddenly great concern that what was passed in the wake of 9-11 were things that had little to do with catching terrorists but a lot to do with increasing the strength of government to infiltrate and spy on conservative organizations.”