Gonzales - Torture issue is a red herring

[dansolo]

Don't think that I am condoning torture. I think that his conclusions are in clear violation of the Geneva Convention and the UN Charter, and will now create a threat that our own captured soldiers will now be subjected to torture.

But I am opposed to Gonzales for his even more radical view that the President has the right to desragard any laws passed by Congress, if he believes that the law is unconstitutional. That is a clear violation of the Constitution. The Constitution gives no such power to the President, and it is appaling that the nominee for Attorney General, the person who is supposed to be the chief law enforcement officer of the country, actively endorses this view.

[WilliamPitt]

1. The two ride in the same cart

Bush can authorize torture because he is above the law, according to Big Al. You can't divorce the two. But I do agree with your premise. The torture is a symptom, not the entire disease. The entire disease is this rise of lawlessness and untouchability. I seem to remember we had a revolution a few hundred years ago to get away from absolute monarchs.

[K-W]

4. But being above the law is ALOT bigger than torture.

Torture is one of the MANY horrible things that can happen if the President and exeecutive branch are accountable to no one.

And now the top law enforcement official in the country is a man who thinks the president is bigger than the constitution.

This is what tyranny looks like. Torture is not the big picture here.

[kclown]

9. Not true

The American revolution was not about the monarchy.  The
colonists were upset at the numerous acts of the newly
vigorous Parliament, where they were not represented, to
reorganize the administration of the colonies, and which were
rubber-stamped by the King (who didn't even speak English). 
After the ordeal, they offered a kingship to Washington, who
declined.

The colonists' case was that they had no legal relationship
with the Parliament, only with the King, and had their own
legislatures and King-appointed governors to regulate their
affairs, and that this was quite satisfactory.

[WilliamPitt]

10. I was thinking of Locke

whose writings, which were the basis of our founding documents, were directed mostly at the absolute monarchy of the Stuarts.

[immoderate]

2. It's part of the overall lack of integrity.

This man would say anything for his client. He does nothing for the reputation of lawyers. More is required of an AG.

--IMM

[liveoaktx]

12. He is also highly incompetent.... look at his work in Texas

[immoderate]

14. Remains to be seen -- what were his goals in Texas.

I mean how can you tell? Sure he got some innocent people executed, etc. But what was he aiming to do? I see him as a pure political operative, and that, of course, is dangerous for a person in charge of the legal arm of the government. Intellectually, he may be competent, but his lack of principle makes him incompetent.

--IMM

[txaslftist]

3. It's a pretty big-ass herring, then.

Especially if you are the one getting "waterboarded".

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Concurring in part and dissenting in part

I agree that it is dangerous to allow any leader, even an elected one, to set aside the law when it suits him. That should have been sufficient reason to reject the nomination of Mr. Gonzales.

Nevertheless, the issue of torture is no red herring. The specific application of Mr. Gonzales' false legal reasoning would be arcane if they did not have such a dramatic consequence. It is ironic, but we are talking about something that presumably one of the central issues of the war on terror: the survival of civilization. By resorting to torture and cloaking it in legal niceties, we make ourselves no better than brutal regimes or the nihilists we condemn. Such behavior is unbecoming a free, democratic people. It is uncivilized.

Having a disagreement with Mr. Gonzales over an interpretation of the Constitution, even one as fundamental as executive power, merely makes him wrong. His efforts to justify torture and the very existence of the network of offshore gulags where torture is administered makes him a war criminal.

[Inland]

6. I agree. That's why its so strange to see him answering

questions under oath--as if Bush couldn't write him a note telling him to lie and Gonzales taking that as relieving him of obligations against perjury.

I think Feingold asked him if he would be so good to inform Congress if Bush decided to not follow any other treaties or statutes. Sure, said Alberto.

[IrateCitizen]

7. Gonzales is simply the fulfillment of George Kennan's prophecy...

"We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." -- George F. Kennan

For those of you unaware of who Kennan was, he was one of the primary architects of the "containment" strategy toward the USSR following WWII. He worked directly for George Marshall during the Truman Administration.

Actually, I think that this just goes to prove how bipartisan our foreign policy has always been, and how both parties have regularly endorsed serious excesses and immoral actions. Kennan, after all, was a Democrat -- a New Deal/Fair Deal liberal.

[gumby]

8. Constitution, schmonstitution

When the entire legal system from the Attorney General, the SCOTUS, and the lower courts have become 'saved' by Strict Constructionists -- which is almost complete -- then the Constitution becomes whatever they say it is whenever they say it.

Don't like the election outcome? -- have the Supremacist Court install a dictator. Don't like the plebes using the court system? -- enact 'tort reform.' Don't like the separation of church and state? -- rewrite history through the courts ala Roy Moore. Don't like spending on social programs? -- have them declared unconstitutional.

Public schools? Not in the Constitution. Reproductive civil rights? Not in the Constitution. Right to vote? Not in the Constitution.

The list of how the King and His Crew intend to destroy democracy through the courts is long but perverting the legal system in only one step along their path of world-wide destruction.

In the fantasy-based Bushco bizarro world of torture and death, Gonzales is the perfect choice. (rant over)

[Demit]

11. Good rant, though. That's why I disagreed vigorously with folks who

tried to find a silver lining in a second Bush administration, by saying at least he'd own his own mess. He's now got four long years, to install his favorite kind of judges, ones who will systematically dismantle all kinds of things via "strict constructionism".

[NewYorkerfromMass]

13. Governor Bush being the guy to determine what is lawful or not

is scary.