In the Bush administration, no bad deed goes unrewarded

Phil Carter looks at the record -- both in Texas and DC -- of the man who would be Attorney General.

Together, these legal policies and memoranda adopted by the Bush administration on Gonzales' watch for the war on terrorism had the effect of eviscerating the nation's institutional, moral, and legal constraints on the treatment and interrogation of prisoners. President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may not have personally ordered the abuses at Abu Ghraib, but on advice from lawyers like Gonzales, they adopted policies that set the conditions for those abuses and the worst scandal to affect the U.S. government since Watergate. Yet, despite the incredible damage done by this scandal to the nation's political and moral standing in the world, not to mention its prospects of winning hearts and minds in the Middle East, no one of any significance has yet answered for these policies. Indeed, it appears many of the lawyers responsible for Abu Ghraib have been rewarded—OLC chief Jay Bybee now sits as a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes II was nominated (but not confirmed) for a seat on the 4 th Circuit; and now Gonzales stands to be promoted, too.

Only eight more weeks until we reach the midpoint of the Bush presidency. The Shrillblog is not likely to run out of material soon.