225 "Religious leaders" ask Gonzales to "denounce torture"...how quaint

For a while there, Alberto Gonzales' nomination to replace John Ashcroft as attorney general was surprisingly smooth for a lawyer with a dubious history of defending the rule of law. And by all indications, Gonzales will indeed survive the confirmation process. But with Gonzales' confirmation hearing just two days away, a growing and increasingly vocal opposition threatens to prompt actual debate about putting a guy like Gonzales in charge of the Justice Department.

For their part, People for the American Way sent a letter today to senators opposing the Gonzales confirmation on several grounds after a thorough review of his record. Then there are the dozen retired military big guns who wrote an unheard of letter to the Judiciary Committee expressing "deep concern" about Gonzales in the AG post, describing him as on the "wrong side of history" on the torture issue.

A group of 225 religious leaders have also written a letter -- this one asking that Gonzales join with them in denouncing all torture. As excerpted from the Talk Left blog: "We invite you to affirm with us that we are all are made in the image of God -- every human being. We invite you to acknowledge that no legal category created by mere mortals can revoke that status. You understand that torture -- the deliberate effort to undermine human dignity -- is a grave sin and affront to God. You would not deny that the systemic use of torture on prisoners at Abu Ghraib was fundamentally immoral, as is the deliberate rendering of any detainee to authorities likely to commit torture." We're not going to hold our collective breaths waiting for Gonzales to publicly affirm any such thing, but you have to hand it to these religious leaders for trying.

The real question of the week, though, regarding the Gonzales matter, is how Senate Democrats will handle his confirmation hearing. Democrats may not have the votes in the new-and-even-more-GOP-dominated-Congress to stop Gonzales' confirmation, but will they at the very least put on a good show of opposition? Speaking to the New York Times this week, Chuck Schumer sounded unnervingly ready to accept Bush's choice of Gonzales and seemed to absolve Democrats of any real duty to oppose his confirmation on the grounds that Cabinet positions usually get less scrutiny than Supreme Court nominees: "Generally, for an executive branch position the president gets the benefit of the doubt," he said. "The general feeling on the committee is that he has probably met that lowered threshold." We have to agree with law professor and blogger Michael Froomkin, who took issue with Schumer's remark: "The bar is pretty low when that 'lowered threshold' will admit a nominee who, in commissioning and passing on the torture memos participated in a scheme to attempt to 1. put a patina of legality on war crimes and 2. totally twist the Constitution to suggest the President has powers akin to Louis XIVth's and 3. mis-state the relevant precedents to make it seem like the above have substantial judicial support when in fact the opposite is true."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html

His views are clear from his record, as is his willingness to do whatever Bush wants him to do. Can you see him EVER saying, "George, you can't do that. It's against the law and it is immoral." It's why the Shrub likes him so much -- he prefers his boots well-licked.

Here's why I think they believe he would tell them the truth and swear off torture if he told them he would:
It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

They just don't "get" how corrupt Gonzales and the administration who wants him actually are. This is a major perception problem that is also one of the reasons why more people aren't upset about the election fraud. They just can't -- or won't -- believe things are really that bad.

But they are. And they will be that much worse if Gonzales is confirmed--not only because of what he will do in office, but also
because of the message his confirmation sends to the rabid dogs in the administration: "Go for it! We won't try to stop you! Torture is OK as long as we don't have to watch it!"

he is incompetent. He gave green light on Kerik.

He WANTED the green light on Kerik, and as for the rest, he wants no interfence with the torture and sadism from those weak-kneed do-gooders who occasionally have the gall to try to stop him. Gonzales will never stand between him and what he wants to do, and that's the way he's bought Bush's patronage. Either Gonzales is a sociopath too, or else he made the decision long ago that rising in power is worth absolutely anything. A monster serving a monster either way.