Alberto R. Gonzales----Notwithstanding his history

I listened to some of the Alberto Gonzales testimony today and it was all I could do to keep from jumping up and yelling "you lying sack of $hit". The last couple of days I have suggested that Alberto R. Gonzales has no mind of his own. I touched on this again here this morning. Alberto Gonzales has advanced because of his ability to tell the boss, George W. Bush, what he wants to hear regardless of what the truth might be. In the commentary, The Gonzales Record, the Washington Post also addresses this issue.

The man who has served as White House counsel these past four years must not become attorney general without clarifying his role in decisions that helped lead to the prisoner abuse scandal and to restrictions of civil liberties. More broadly, the Senate should ask whether Mr. Gonzales is capable of giving Mr. Bush dispassionate legal advice, rather than -- as he seems to have done so often in the past -- telling the president what he wants to hear.
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Senators should with great care ask Mr. Gonzales to fill in the aspects of his record that are not known and to explain how he justifies those decisions that appear to have harmed the nation. The country needs an attorney general capable and confident enough to stand up for the law and deliver arm's-length legal advice. Before voting to confirm, senators need to satisfy themselves that -- notwithstanding his history -- Mr. Gonzales can and will deliver such advice.

"The country needs an attorney general capable and confident enough to stand up for the law and deliver arm's-length legal advice." Based on his past history Mr. Gonzales is not a man who can do this.