  The red quasar 3C 212 (z=1.049) is one of the most distant and most luminous
AGN which has shown evidence of an X-ray warm absorber. In order to further
investigate this unusual quasar, we used Chandra/ACIS-S to observe 3C 212 for
19.5 ksec, resulting in a net detection of ~4000 counts. The Chandra data
confirm the presence of an excess absorbing column N_H ~ 4 x 10^21 cm^-2 at the
quasar redshift, but we find no compelling evidence for a warm absorber. Using
both the Chandra and archival ROSAT PSPC data, we obtain very good fits for
both a partially covered neutral absorber and a low-ionization (U = 0.03)
photo-ionized absorber. In the ultraviolet, 3C 212 shows a strong associated
MgII absorber. Based on a moderate resolution (80 km/s) MMT spectrum we show
that the absorber is highly saturated and has a covering fraction less than
60%, implying that the absorber is truly intrinsic to the quasar.
Photo-ionization modeling of the MgII absorber yields a constraint on the
ionization parameter of U < 0.03, inconsistent with a warm UV/X-ray absorber.
In addition to our spectral analysis, we find evidence in the ACIS image data
for weak extended emission surrounding the quasar as well as emission
corresponding to the radio lobes at a distance of 5 arcsec from 3C 212. The
statistical significance of these features is low, but we briefly explore the
implications if the detections are valid.
