No on Gonzales

Dr. Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State was a disappointment because she is an incompetent, a liar and an incompetent liar. The nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General is much more offensive than even Rice as Secretary of State. Here we have a man that has demonstrated over and over again that he has no respect for the law, domestic and international, no respect for the Constitution of the United States and no respect for the lawmakers in the House and Senate. This should not be the credentials of the nations top lawman. His nomination was an insult to all who respect the law and the constitution. His confirmation will be....it's so bad I can't think of a word. I join the chorus of bloggers who just say no to Gonzales. Sign us Up

A Simple Twist of Fate

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these, "It might have been!"
- John Greenleaf Whittier

The year was 1996. The place was a county courthouse in Austin Texas. Inside was newly minted Texas Governor George W. Bush, and he was a man with a problem.

He had received a summons to appear for jury duty. This is normally not a problem for most people, and in the case of a politician it can be an ideal opportunity. Indeed, Bush looked as if he was moving to capitalize on it by telling the local press that he was "prepared to serve" the public just like any other upstanding citizen. There was one slight hitch, though. The case to be heard was that of a stripper from a local club who had been arrested on a drunk driving charge.

George W. Bush knew that he had a Driving Under the Influence conviction on his record from his days in Maine. He had kept that tidbit of news out of the public eye so far, and knew that he had to keep it buried for as long as humanly possible if he ever wanted to see the inside of the West Wing without a visitor's pass. He also knew that, should he go through the jury process, he would be hit with two very uncomfortable questions. One would be on the jury form where he would have to fill in an answer to the question, "Have you ever been accused in a criminal case?" Bush left that question blank on the form. The next would be during the juror vetting process, where he would be publicly asked if he had any experience with drunk driving cases that might influence his ability to render a fair and impartial verdict in the dancer's case.

What's a governor to do? Well, if you're Dubya, you call up Alberto Gonzales (yes... we mean that Alberto Gonzales) and have him get you off of jury duty... PRONTO.

...before the case began, Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers. Gonzales then asked Crain to "consider" striking Bush from the jury, making the novel "conflict of interest" argument that the Texas governor might one day be asked to pardon the defendant (who worked at an Austin nightclub called Sugar's), the judge said. "He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush.

But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off."

That certainly was a piece of luck, wasn't it? I mean, Gonzales coming riding in on his white charger at that moment, sweeping Dubya up behind him like a maiden in distress, and riding off into the sunset before any nasty county officials could ask him uncomfortable questions? You'd think somebody like Gonzales would be handy to have around in a pinch. You might even be tempted to reward him with something. Perhaps something like.... oh, I don't know... some high federal office?

I have Bob Dylan's "Simple twist of fate" playing at my desk right now. Just think about it for one tragic moment, assuming your heart can bear it. In a universe only slightly different than this one, Bush is forced to admit the truth in court or is later found out to have lied on his jury form and in his testimony. He is discredited in Texas and the GOP passes on him for the 2000 presidential run. Al Gore is in the White House on 9/11. Osama bin Forgotten is long since dead or in jail, and Gore never has any motivation at all to invade Iraq on trumped up charges.

He told himself he did not care,
pushed the window open wide,
felt an emptiness inside
to which he just could not relate.
Brought on, by a simple twist of fate.

This guest post is cross linked from over at my home stomping grounds, Running Scared.

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.
[...............]
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.

Alberto R. Gonzales, no mind of his own Pt.2

We have seen that George W. Bush is lazy and intellectually incurious. He only wants good news, Bush only wants information that confirms his preconceived notions, no facts please. The Attorney General nominee, Alberto Gonzales, has built a career on enabling George W. Bush's tendency to avoid the facts of issues. Most of the attention has been directed toward the torture memos. A few days ago we had a post on Gonzales' involvement in Texas death penalty cases while Bush was Governor. Bill in DC has sent us this WAPO article on the clemency memos prepared by Gonzales in Texas.

In 1995, a one-eyed drifter named Henry Lee Lucas was headed for execution by injection in a Texas prison for the murder of an unnamed woman, one of hundreds he confessed to killing in a crime spree lasting more than a decade.

The task of recommending whether then-Gov. George W. Bush should grant a reprieve or commute Lucas's death sentence fell to Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush's counsel. In a memo to Bush dated March 13, 1995, Gonzales marshaled a case for Lucas's guilt. He noted that Lucas had given a sheriff a drawing of the victim, and attached a record of Lucas's eight other Texas murder convictions, each of which led to lengthy or life prison sentences.

Left out of Gonzales's summary was any mention of a 1986 investigation by the Texas attorney general's office that concluded that Lucas had not killed the woman, and that he had falsely confessed to numerous killings in an effort to undermine the veracity of his confessions to the crimes he did commit.

While the six-page memo factually summarizes Lucas's court appeals, "it does not really address in any way . . . all the questions that were raised about his guilt," said Jim Mattox, the Texas attorney general from 1983 to 1991, who instigated an investigation of police conduct in the case. He said that if the memo had been prepared for him, he would have chastised the author "for allowing me to make a decision on partial information."

I guess the question here is was Gonzales just sloppy or was he trying to protect his boss from unpleasant facts? It really doesn't matter, either one should make him an unacceptable candidate for the nations highest law official.

Alberto R. Gonzales, no mind of his own

With all the talk about Alberto Gonzales' nomination for Attorney General most are still missing the real reason he is unqualified. The New York Times has another piece on his participation in the justification of torture and Norwegianity comments on a Washington Post article on Gonzales and torture. We had a post here a few days ago about Gonzales' involvement in Texas death penalty cases when Bush was governor. The overwhelming pattern here is that Gonzales has no mind of his own. He has advanced in his career by recognizing what George W. Bush wanted to hear and only presenting that evidence. The Gonzales nomination is just another example of staffing the administration with loyal "yes men". In the case of Gonzales this has already come back to haunt the administration with the Kerik non-vetting. Gonzales is the perfect AG from the administration's perspective but the worse possible choice from the perspective of the citizens of the US. A man with no mind of his own.