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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- THE TORTURE GUYMaureen Dowd New York Times November 12, 2004 WASHINGTON During the U.S. presidential campaign, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney gave the ominous impression that there was a dire threat that terrorists could incinerate Americans at any time if that powder puff John Kerry got anywhere near the Oval Office. . We Americans felt the hot breath of the wolf pack bearing down on us. But only a week later, the alarums have dimmed. . The administration lowered the terror threat in New York and Washington on Wednesday, and the Capitol Hill police were dismantling the elaborate security checkpoints they had put on streets around the Capitol to thwart would-be bombers. . In his handwritten resignation letter, John Ashcroft reassured Bush that "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." . Mission accomplished. Tell those wolves to scat and let that eagle soar, baby. . It was a tad surprising that Ashcroft would want to leave just when he had a mandate to throw blue curtains over every naked statue in town and hold Bible study for government employees. (He called his daily devotionals at the Justice Department "RAMP": Read, Argue, Memorize and Pray.) . The president is putting his own counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the famous memo defending torture, in charge of America's civil liberties. Torture Guy, who blithely threw off 75 years of international law and set the stage for the grotesque abuses at Abu Ghraib and dubious detentions at Guantánamo, seems to have a good grasp of what's just. No doubt we'll soon learn what other protections, besides the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution, Gonzales finds "quaint" and "obsolete." . With the FBI investigating Halliburton and the second-term scandal curse looming, Bush and Cheney want a dependable ally - and former Enron attorney - at Justice. But since the country is controlled by one party and the press has tended toward the pusillanimous, cowed by the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as he tries to throw reporters in jail, the White House may be able to suppress any second-term problems ... DECIDING WHAT'S SALIENT ABOUT GONZALES By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42396-2004Nov11.html November 11, 2004 What's the most important thing about White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who President Bush nominated yesterday to replace Attorney General John D. Ashcroft? That he would be the first Hispanic attorney general? That he has been a longtime and deeply loyal friend to the president? That he championed legal arguments that some critics say laid the groundwork for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison? Clearly, all three are important. The first is neat. The second is telling. The third is horrifying, if true. All three are mentioned in pretty much all of today's major media coverage. But what, as we say in the newspaper business, is the lead? I parsed the first descriptive phrases of the main news stories about Gonzales by several major media organizations. Here's what they went with: * Washington Post: Longtime friend. * New York Times: Longtime political loyalist. * Los Angeles Times: Loyal friend; aggressive advocate for strengthening Bush's powers as a wartime commander. * USA Today: Bush confidant, first Hispanic. * Wall Street Journal: Son of Mexican immigrants; close, longtime adviser to Bush. * Chicago Tribune: Friend; first Hispanic. * Knight Ridder: First Hispanic; longtime friend. * CBS Evening News: Loyal longtime ally; under fire for legal arguments in war on terror. * NBC Nightly News: Mexican American; friend. * ABC World News Tonight: Friend; anything but a country-club Republican. * Associated Press: Helped shape controversial legal strategy in the war on terror; first Hispanic. * Reuters: Son of migrant workers; Bush confidant; shaper of legal opinions about prisoner treatment. Is the whole "torture memo" issue just too complicated to get at in the lead of a story, or is it a relative non-issue? We'll have to wait until the confirmation hearings to find out. Here's the text of the remarks by Bush and Gonzales yesterday. Here's the video. Here's the roster of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here's the Jan. 25, 2002, memo from Gonzales to Bush on prisoner treatment, and a linked summary of the progression of memos and decisions, from lawofwar.org. The Coverage Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush nominated White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general yesterday, choosing his top lawyer and longtime friend to guide the war on terrorism and lead the federal government's largest law enforcement agency. "Confirmation by the Senate, considered likely, would make Gonzales, 49, the first Hispanic attorney general in U.S. history and place the Justice Department in the hands of a loyal Bush confidant who helped craft some of the administration's most controversial anti-terrorism strategies. . . . "Nonetheless, some Democrats said Gonzales will face sharp questioning about his role in crafting administration anti-terrorism policies that have been overturned or scaled back by the courts." As Eggen explains, that includes Gonzales's argument that the war on terrorism made the Geneva Conventions' limitations on treatment of enemy prisoners obsolete, his role in another memo advising that torturing alleged al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad may be justified and his public defense of detaining alleged enemy combatants without access to lawyers or courts. Another point raised by Eggen: "Some career prosecutors at the Justice Department were also alarmed by Bush's choice of Gonzales, said one administration official, given the department's role in politically sensitive investigations involving the White House. These include the inquiry into the disclosure of a CIA operative's name and an escalating investigation of Halliburton Co., the energy services company formerly run by the vice president." David E. Sanger and Eric Lichtblau write in the New York Times: "The nomination of Mr. Gonzales would also put one of his most trusted aides in a post where past presidents have wanted to have a confidant, as well as someone who can help defend the White House, much as John F. Kennedy chose his brother Robert, or Ronald Reagan chose Edwin Meese III." Richard B. Schmitt writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Gonzales was also an architect of the system of military tribunals that the Defense Department is using in Cuba to prosecute suspected terrorists. Critics complained that detainees were being denied their basic rights under the Geneva Convention. The survival of the military tribunals was cast in doubt this week in a ruling by a federal judge. . . . "Nonetheless, compared with Ashcroft, who became a polarizing figure in part because of his combative and often highly public defense of the administration's war on terrorism, Bush's choice for his new attorney general is mild-mannered and relatively noncontroversial." Andrew Zajac writes in the Chicago Tribune: "Although less publicly wedded to conservative social issues, Gonzales is similar to Ashcroft in his staunch support for an unfettered federal hand in pursuing terrorists and in defending the need for governmental secrecy. "At the beginning of his White House tenure, Gonzales wrote an executive order making it easier to keep presidential papers sealed and repeatedly cited executive privilege to keep secret the makeup and activities of an industry task force convened by Vice President Dick Cheney to help set energy policy." Zajac writes that when Gonzales was chief counsel to then-Gov. Bush, his duties included keeping Bush informed of petitions for clemency from condemned prisoners. "According to the Atlantic Monthly, Gonzales handled 57 such petitions but sometimes provided Bush with only cursory reviews of the cases, leaving out crucial information such as ineffective counsel and evidence of innocence." Tom Brune writes in Newsday that "the choice of Gonzales for that key cabinet job gives Democrats a new opportunity to scrutinize and demand accountability on some of the most controversial issues involved in the war on terrorism, said liberal groups and even some allies of departing Attorney General John Ashcroft. "Gonzales took a harder line than even Ashcroft on the issues of enemy combatants and military commissions, despite the public perception of Ashcroft, Justice insiders say." Roland Watson writes in the London Times: "President Bush named as his new Attorney-General yesterday the man whose legal opinion critics blame for opening the door to the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. . . . "But his nomination places Mr Bush on collision course with the Senate, which must approve Mr Gonzales' appointment, and risks re-opening many of the most controversial episodes of the first Bush term, including the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp." John Cochran on ABC'S World News Tonight shows Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying: "I don't see Judge Gonzales as being a controversial nomination -- at least not a lightning rod type." Gonzales Profiles Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post: "In background and temperament, Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's choice to be attorney general, could hardly be more different from John D. Ashcroft." Gonzales is "soft-spoken, nondogmatic and viewed with suspicion by conservatives. . . . "As White House counsel in Bush's first term, Gonzales was known less for ideology than for loyalty to Bush. Indeed, he could be politically tone-deaf in his zeal to protect the authority of his boss in squabbles with Congress. " David G. Savage and Edwin Chen write in the Los Angeles Times: "There are two oft-heard Texas stories about Alberto R. Gonzales, whom President Bush introduced Wednesday as his choice for attorney general. "One is inspirational, about the son of migrant workers who used education and determination to rise from near poverty to become counsel to the governor of Texas and then to the president of the United States. "The other is more practical, about the lawyer-as-fixer who cleverly shielded his boss from legal and political trouble over an arrest for drunk driving. . . . "Unlike Ashcroft, Gonzales is a trusted friend of the president who can be counted on to put the interests of the White House first." David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson write in the New York Times: "He is viewed with some suspicion by Democrats, who promised on Wednesday to question him aggressively about his role in setting administration policy on detaining and questioning people captured in the effort to combat terrorism. And he is seen as unreliable by many conservatives, who said he has not been sufficiently hard line on the issues of most concern to them, including abortion and affirmative action." Kevin Johnson writes in USA Today that Gonzales "has been the administration's point man in defending Bush's efforts to keep more government information secret, and he had a leading role in crafting a list of conservative federal court nominees that led to a series of nasty clashes with Senate Democrats. "Gonzales became a symbol for loyalty and discretion in an administration that values those qualities more than almost anything." Robert Elder Jr. writes in the Austin American-Statesman: "The president's nomination marks the fifth time in a decade that Bush has turned to Gonzales, a former partner in Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins. Gonzales, 49, served as then-Gov. Bush's general counsel and as Texas secretary of state, a Texas Supreme Court justice and, since 2001, President Bush's White House counsel. "Gonzales' legal handiwork has followed the arc of Bush's career." Helen Kennedy writes in the New York Daily News: "Alberto Gonzales, or 'the Judge,' as Bush calls him, has a lot going for him - including smarts, drive and a close friendship with Bush. "'I love him dearly,' Bush said of the amiable, mild-mannered lawyer in 2001." Editorial Roundup Washington Post: "Mr. Gonzales, one of the president's most loyal lieutenants here as he was in Austin, has been an architect of harmful policies related to the prisoner abuse scandal and the war on terrorism more generally. . . . [T]he Senate should carefully examine Mr. Gonzales's role in the decisions that helped lead to the Abu Ghraib scandal." New York Times: "Mr. Gonzales has a long record of giving Mr. Bush bad legal advice. . . . The Justice Department also urgently needs to review the administration's policies on detainees and prisoners of war in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq. Given Mr. Gonzales's history on this subject, we hope that he uses his Senate confirmation hearings to promise to bring the government into compliance with international law, the Geneva Conventions and rulings by federal judges, including the Supreme Court." Los Angeles Times: "[T]he role he played in orchestrating the war on terror from the White House counsel's office makes him a disastrous choice to lead the Justice Department. . . . Gonzales has also fostered the administration's culture of secrecy." Wall Street Journal: "The message would seem to be policy continuity, with a kinder, gentler public face. . . . Mr. Gonzales has many things going for him»But his job will nonetheless be to build on the Ashcroft legacy." Chicago Tribune: "Maybe Gonzales, who would be the first Hispanic attorney general, is the person to change the climate at the Justice Department. . . . If he is confirmed by the Senate -- let's hear the case -- then it will be his task to restore the trust and prestige of an office that his predecessor did so much to injure." www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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