The Nation: "most vigorous opposition" to Gonzales from military officers

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050124&s=shapiro

It says something that the most vigorous opposition to Alberto Gonzales's nomination for US Attorney General emanates from recently retired military officers, not the civil rights lobby. It also says something that even as the White House, through a new Justice Department memo, sought to defuse Gonzales's record as the legal godfather of Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, word leaked of an emerging Administration plan for lifetime internment of terror suspects, without trial, in a worldwide network of US-built prisons. This is the first Attorney General nomination of global consequence, a dimension to which Washington only slowly awakened as Gonzales headed into his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

From the day he was named by President Bush, Gonzales posed a dilemma for Democrats and civil rights organizations: Is this nominee worth fighting? Conventional wisdom counseled caution: As the first Latino AG nominee, he has a compelling personal history; he would secure easy confirmation from the Republican Senate; and besides, Gonzales is ABA--Anybody But Ashcroft. Democrats (notably New York's Chuck Schumer) immediately signaled their likely acquiescence. For weeks, most leading civil rights groups, with the exception of the defiant Center for Constitutional Rights, limited themselves to toothless calls for "vigorous scrutiny." The best liberals could hope for, went the insiders' whispers, would be to "make a record" that might inhibit a future Gonzales nomination to the Supreme Court.

It's one thing for the ACLU to criticize Gonzales, quite another when he gets denounced by the very military leadership Republicans have long claimed to stand for. The officers' letter provided covering fire as People for the American Way--until January in the "cautious scrutiny" camp--added its full-throated opposition, and religious leaders began to speak up.

These retired officers (and Human Rights First, which sponsored their press conference) remembered what Democratic pragmatists forgot in the despairing weeks of November: For reasons ranging from ideology to personal malfeasance, seemingly secure Cabinet confirmations can spin wildly out of control when the heat is on--witness John Tower and Zoë Baird. And Gonzales is not universally admired in the Senate Republican Caucus. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, formerly with the military's legal corps, remains disgusted by Abu Ghraib and the chain of decisions that led to it. Just days before Gonzales's hearing, Senator Richard Lugar blasted the new White House internment-without-trial plan. (That plan, depending on the existence of authoritarian allies to do our dirty work, suggests just how cynical is the President's "democracy on the march" rhetoric.)

[burythehatchet]

1. he's perfect

for this admin. He embodies all the critical values that are cherished in wallyville; secrecy, sadism, criminal intent, etc.

[roenyc]

2. and look at that smirk! N/t

[Supersedeas]

4. and at the most critically important moments--he too can't recall

Perfectly Rovian.

[realFedUp]

3. To Dems on Judiciary Committee: Don't vote yes on Gonzales

unless you want more of us to ask what
exactly you are willing to fight for.

[Tinoire]

5. Thanks to those military officers who understand that

Gonzalez' obscene disrespect for quaint little treaties like the Geneva Convention sets them and their men up for "pay-back".

Finally.