It's only the Constitution

Susan at Suburban Guerrilla asks why Democrats are once again allowing themselves to be so easily rolled in confirmation hearings for yet another dangerous Bush choice for AG. Ashcroft wasn't enough for these guys, now they accept a guy who finds nothing unconstitutional about torture and who finds that the president is above constitutional checks and balances. And remember, Gonzalez is the guy who provided the briefs (and I do mean "brief") on Texas inmates who were about to be executed, never once providing Governor Bush with a reason to stay an execution.

As admirable as his personal story may be, he is either too incompetent for the job, or he is almost pathological in his disdain for civil rights and justice.

As the Times notes,

The questions about Mr. Gonzales's actions in this area include these points:

¶His role in developing the administration's claim of authority to imprison indefinitely "unlawful enemy combatants," which could include United States citizens and would not be reviewable by the courts.

¶His role in supervising a legal task force that concluded that Mr. Bush was not bound either by an international treaty prohibiting torture or by federal law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation.

¶The Jan. 25, 2002, memorandum he wrote to the president saying the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan. He described the conventions as "quaint" because he said they required "that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms and scientific instruments."

White House officials said that Mr. Gonzales expected to be questioned closely about the memorandums on detainee treatment and that they did not believe his nomination was in any jeopardy. One official said the word "quaint" referred to the items the prisoners should receive but not to the protections themselves.

But the language in Mr. Gonzales's memorandum appears to misstate the nature of the provision to make the conventions seem unduly soft. The conventions do not require that prisoners of war be given items like athletic uniforms and scientific instruments but that the authorities allow such items to be received in the mail.

A commissary and scrip are not requirements, but if they exist they must conform to regulations in the conventions.

Mr. Gonzales will also be questioned about his role in the tightly constructed definition of torture in an August 2002 Justice Department memorandum.

On Thursday night, with no public announcement, the department renounced the 2002 memorandum that said, for example, to qualify as torture physical pain "must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure."

But the new definition did not provide clear alternative definitions and limits.

In the same Times story, Senator Charles Schumer argues that, unlike a judicial nominee, cabinet officials get less scrutiny from the Senate because a president should be permitted some discretion in choosing his Cabinet. I heard the same thing from Senator Dodd when I wrote him and argued he should vote against Ashcroft four years ago.

But the AG is not the Sec. of Transportation. He is not Labor Secretary. He represents the highest law officer in the land. And someone with so little interest in the rule of law or the rights of defendants has no business getting that job.