Ashcroft’s gone [wait for cheers to die down] and the White House is floating Alberto Gonzales to replace him as Attorney General. That’s Alberto “obsolete & quaint” Gonzalez, by the way:
“As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,” Gonzales wrote to Bush… “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
Gonzales also argued that dropping Geneva would allow the president to “preserve his flexibility” in the war on terror. His reasoning? That U.S. officials might otherwise be subject to war-crimes prosecutions under the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales said he feared “prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges” based on a U.S. law that bars “war crimes,” which were defined to include “any grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions.…
The Senate Judiciary Committee will be considering this nomination. If any of the Democrats on this committee want to demonstrate that their party has “values,” this would be a good occasion. What did Gonzales think of all those torture memos that passed his desk? What is his opinion of the miraculous “Commander-in-Chief Override” that apparently allows the president to ignore laws and treaties while he’s wearing his war hat?
The answers to these questions and many more may be yours… if The Donkey Grows a Pair.
