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Alberto Gonzalez is widely regarded as a modest, good-natured fellow. He struggled up from a childhood in poverty to become White House counsel under George W. Bush. And as attorney general he would probably be a step up from John Ashcroft... if it weren't for one small problem -- an incurable torture fetish.
At the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on his nomination last week, Gonzalez for some reason refused to reject the legal advice he gave Bush in 2002: that it's just fine and dandy to order torture, and that torturers should be protected from punishment. According to the Washington Post, the "2002 ruling made under his direction [said] that the infliction of pain short of serious physical injury, organ failure or death did not constitute torture." So as long as you don't cripple them or kill them, you're good to go. Naked pyramid anyone?
Instead of repudiating his former advice as disgusting and un-American (which it is), Gonzalez said, "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached." Okay... well, what else? Bush's AG-to-be also repeated his criticisms of the Geneva Conventions, saying they "limit our ability to solicit information from detainees," which is, according to the Post, "an interpretation at odds with that of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's legal corps, the Red Cross, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and decades of U.S. experience in war." So nothing to worry about there then. In fact, even current attorney general John Ashcroft has said that he doesn't believe in torture because it produces nothing of value.
Let me spell this out for those of you having a hard time following this: the Bush administration wants the next attorney general of the United States to be a guy who spent several hours last week sitting in front of Senators doing his very, very best to defend the practice of torturing prisoners.
Riiiight.
