Alberto Gonzales's cookery lesson

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7794

Alberto Gonzales's cookery lesson
by Bob Burnett | May 30 2007


It's an internet legend that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out, but if you put him in cold water and then heat the pot, the frog doesn't notice the temperature change and is cooked. This apocryphal tale describes the career of the United States attorney-general Alberto Gonzales: in the past six years his perfidy has increased - "heated up", if you will; only it's not Gonzales but the United States justice system that's been cooked, as a result.

As White House counsel, Gonzales lurked in the shadows until, in 2003, The Atlantic Monthly published an exposé, "The Texas Clemency Memos". Alan Berlow obtained fifty-seven death-penalty memos Gonzales had prepared in his role as counsel to then governor of Texas, George W Bush. The writer noted that Gonzales's memoranda were superficial and consistently recommended denial of clemency regardless of how egregious the defendant's circumstances were: mental illness or retardation, inadequate counsel, or questionable circumstantial evidence. As a reward for his loyalty, Bush enlisted Gonzales as a key member of his White House team.

Over the past six years, a picture has emerged of the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the Bush inner circle: Karl Rove ensures that every presidential decision maximises Bush's political power; Dick Cheney attacks Bush critics and plays "bad cop" to Dubya's "good cop"; and Alberto Gonzales provides the legal cover for every White House action.

In the service of the White House, Gonzalez sponsored an expansion of presidential authority far beyond anything envisioned by the signers of the US constitution. In the "Authorization for Use of Military Force" that Congress approved on 18 September 2001: "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism."

snip//

At the time of his confirmation as attorney-general, critics lambasted Alberto Gonzales's qualifications, saying he had neither the legal or managerial experience required to function as head of the department of justice. But, they missed the point: in the Bush administration loyalty trumps competence, and ideological rigidity eclipses principle (see Sidney Blumenthal, "The Republican subversion of law", 20 March 2007).

Alberto Gonzales has emerged as the ultimate Bush toady: as a consequence, the water he swims in gets hotter and hotter, but this hasn't affected Gonzales; however, it's cooked the unwitting American public who depend upon the justice system to protect its rights.
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