Fractures in the right wing over the Torturer in Chief

We reported last week that rumors inside the beltway have been flying concerning upcoming SCOTUS vacancies - the first being that O'Connor might resign before Rehnquist, and the second that Bush was looking hopefully at Attorney General and Chief Torturer Alberto Gonzales to take the first open spot. While opposition from the left is a given, I was rather shocked to find out that, if this source can be believed, the heavily conservative right wingnuts don't want him either! And the person reporting this will come as a surprise to many, I suspect. (Yes, break out the wingnut accusations and prepare your righteous indignation. Middle Earth Journal will now break with all precedent and quote from none other than that Bush loving, war hawk and unindicted, spy-outing felon, Robert Novak.)

For more than a week, a veritable torrent has tipped Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as President Bush's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. It has sent the conservative movement into spasms of fear and loathing.

Who would have guessed? For all of the bad news about Gonzales, according to Novak he does have one redeeming quality. You see, almost without exception, the anti-choice right wingers all have one thing in common - hypocrisy. They believe in the full sanctity of human life - but only until you are born. After that, you're eligible for the death penalty, being bombed or shot if you wear a turban, getting enlisted in the military and sent to Iraq to die, and all other manner of things.

Gonzales, on the other hand, while ready to torture and kill adults, apparently doesn't toe the line when it comes to the sanctity of a fetus.

Gonzales long has been unacceptable to anti-abortion activists because of his record as a Texas Supreme Court justice.... If opposition to abortion is Bush's pre-eminent social conservative position, Gonzales is a most improbable choice. He could not bring himself to support parental notification on the Texas Supreme Court. While he professes to be anti-abortion, he maintains Roe v. Wade is inviolable.

At least he's consistent. If this report is true, however, Novak may be correct in thinking that the leak of his name as a possible Chief Justice for SCOTUS wasn't as much of a trial balloon as it was a smoke screen while other, more hawkish conservatives are vetted for the post.

For example, why the torrent of Gonzales leaks from a White House extraordinarily adept at holding back the president's intended nominations? It looks like a trial balloon, but there are also suspicions that Gonzales's name has been floated by critics in order to shoot him down.

That sounds less like a tin hat conspiracy theory and far more like a realistic scenario to me. We report... you decide. We should see the wheels in motion some time this week to settle the question.