Burnt Orange Report

I can only assume that Gonzalez is less of a prude, making him a huge improvement. He should be less be prone to prurient, priggish, & prudish window-peeking in the name of "national security."

First comment: This is the guy who advised Bush about pretexts for ignoring the Geneva Convention prohibiting torture of prisoners. A vote for Gonzalez is a vote for what went on at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

I may be able to offer more later.

Demo, I don't think any of us expect Alberto Gonzalez to be a Nicholas Katzenbach or Bobby Kennedy, just merely an improvement over John Ashcroft. After all, Ashcroft's own state prefered a dead man over him in the Senate race 4 years ago. Plus Ashcroft is just a spookey, weird fanatically fundamentalist nutjob. Remember, he's the one that had DSS agents (on government time paid for by our tax dollars) scope out the US Embassy in the Hague for calico cats because they are signs of the devil. While Ashcroft's spokeman has laughed that assertion off, though the source of it was one of Ashcroft's own aides.

I forgot to mention, that Alberto Gonzalez is also the guy who as a Texas Supreme Court Justice issued a big smack down of fellow Justice Priscilla Owen. Bush nominated Owen to sit on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (of which Texas is part) claiming she embodied his ideals of stict constructionism and opposition to judicial activism. In 2000, Owen dissented from an abortion case In re Jane Doe, 19 SW3d 346 (Tex 2000) where the Texas high court interpreted a judicial bypass law for a minor to obtain consent for an abortion. Owen tried to twist the law so that no minor could obtain consent despite the law's clear language. Gonzalez responded to her dissent with a concurrence describing her view as "an unconscionable act of judicial activism." Gonzalez is no where near as conservative as Ashcroft, but that's only relative. I've even herad that some right wingers joke that Alberto Gonzalez is Spanish for David Souter.

Correction, Craig:

Gonzales's comments were directed at Justice Enoch's dissent, not Justice Owen's. He has made this repeatedly clear in the course of Justice Owen's ludicrous "confirmation" hearings.

Hopefully, we'll see Justice Owen on the 5th Circuit soon.

It was already said here, but Gonzales=torture. Plain and simple.

I'm also kinda irked at how well Ashcroft is being treated now that he's leaving. I wrote about his horrible record prosecuting the WoT and his own weird character quirks.

It all adds up to not much changing at DoJ.

I doubt there are any major disagreements betwenn Ashcroft and Gonzalez, i'd expect more of the same.

Justice Owens?? i'm scared for America

"Gitmo Ghraib Gonzales"? I find it disgusting that Bush should appoint to head the Dept. of Justice (!!) an attorney who called the Geneva conventions "quaint" and advocated the use of torture. It burns me every time the press says prisoner "abuse." Not just "abuse" -- we are not talking about Monty Python's "comfy chair" or Joe Bob Brigg's example of putting a toilet seat around your next while signing Gaelic songs on the highway. We are talking torture and murder. Torture. Murder. What have we become that we can even consider this??? The man should be disbarred. Shame, shame, shame!

djmm