POLITICS: Conservative Gonzales to Succeed Ashcroft, Sources Say

Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel , and a confidant of the President, has been chosen to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General according to sources close to the matter. The announcement may come as soon as today. Gonzales has been often linked to rumors that he would be the one nominated to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist should he retire for health reasons. He also os the author of the controversial legal opinion written in 2002 that President Bush used to waive the anti torture law and other international treaties that pertain to prisoners of war. The American Civil Liberties Union has taken no position on him as a candidate for the Attorney General post, but was quick to point out "Particular attention should be devoted to exploring Mr. Gonzales' proposed policies on the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, the Guantanamo Bay detentions, the designation of United States citizens as enemy combatants and reproductive rights."




This will be the first test of Presidents Bush�s attempt to �reach out� to the American population that did not vote for him on November 2nd. However, this appointment will fail to do so. If possible, Gonzales represents perhaps an even more conservative Attorney General than Ashcroft was. Also, given he wrote the opinion on treatment of detainees, and his reproductive rights stance is far right, and his total embracement of the Patriot Act, make him a candidate that will be difficult for a lot of Americans to accept.

People forget that it was Alberto Gonzalez who drafted the pillars of the legal argument championed by the White House to define enemy combatant status, and the subsequent disregard for the Geneva Conventions when torture was applied, because of that played loose & fast definitions framework.

I still think the battle will be for Sec Def and Sec State. Wolfowitz is rumored to be in the running for both as well as Condi Rice. I shudder to think of Wolfowitz in either of those positions

Bush was/is all about his cabinet, with Cheney being the defacto president. Given people like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft ect....who not only should have been fired but shot....why would anyone vote for him unless he said he would completely clean house!?

I read that Bush wanted to nominate him for the Supreme Court, but his handlers balked because of Gonzales' pro-choice record. So they stuck him in a place where he wouldn't harm the neo-con agenda.

On Sunday, The Washington Post published on its Web site an internal White House memo from Aug. 1, 2002, signed by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, which argued darkly that torturing al-Qaida captives "may be justified" and that international laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations" conducted under President Bush. The memo then continued for 50 pages to make the case for the use of torture.

Architect of Abu Ghraib Torture


[edit on 11-11-2004 by SkipShipman]

Again, I disagree with this choice for attorney General. First of all his is pro-choice. Secondly he favors Bush's plan to give amnesty to illegal immigrants. Thirdly he is pro-affirmative action, and lastly he is against requiring parentlal notification of teenagers seeking abortions.

So Far Bush is a complete liberal this term.

I've been reading about Gonzalez - interesting character to say the least. What I don't understand is why he has aligned himself with the Republicans. His views (as noted by BJ) definitely do not reflect the current party platform. He has also shown himself to be an embarrassment to Bush before. From MSNBC:

Conservatives have long been wary of Gonzales. The journal Human Events accused him of sounding "like Mario Cuomo." The National Review said a joke among GOP aides in the Senate was "Gonzales is Spanish for Souter," a reference to David H. Souter, the Supreme Court justice nominated by President George H.W. Bush who joined the court's liberal wing.

The distrust dates from Gonzales's days on the Texas Supreme Court in 2000, when he joined a majority of the judges in upholding a pregnant teenager's right to seek an abortion without notifying her parents. Taking aim at two conservative dissenters in the case, Gonzales wrote that they were engaged in "unconscionable judicial activism."

Those words came back to haunt Bush when he appointed one of the two dissenters, Priscilla R. Owen, to a federal appeals court � and Senate Democrats threw Gonzales's words back in the White House's face. The Owen nomination failed.

Personally I would have preferred a nominee who had a prosecutor background like Guiliani.

The entire article can be found here