Back to the future

Grim political day, with House and Senate confirming Bush’s "victory,"
and the Judiciary Committee beginning the Gonzales hearings. At least one senator,
California’s Senator Barbara Boxer, stood up this year to join Rep. John Conyers
and 30 other representatives in opposing
the election charade. Because one Senator joined the House members, both
Senate and House were forced to discuss and to vote on whether to declare Bush
president. The saga
of miscounted votes, lost votes, computer tampering, voters refused the right
to vote joins the shameful history of Florida in 2000.

In the Judiciary Committee, Senators Hatch, Specter and Leahy followed the
elaborate rules of Senatorial courtesy in applauding one another’s long and
distinguished service and agreeing to call the nominee "Judge" Gonzales,
since he served as a judge in Texas. The full
transcript of the first day’s hearings repeats his Horatio Alger success
story and his assertion that, "This administration does not engage in torture
and will not condone torture," and his pledge that, as Attorney General,
he would respect the Geneva Conventions that he last year deemed "quaint"
and "obsolete." But he also said that "I think the decision not
to apply Geneva in our conflict with Al Qaeda was absolutely the right decision,"
and that, hypothetically of course, the President has the legal right to ignore
any Congressional ban on torture.

The Star Tribune got it right:
Alberto Gonzales has blood on his hands. Reports of prison torture continue
to come in, and not just of long-past occurences but of a
continuing nightmare with no end in sight.

Molly Ivins,
as always, sums it up well:

"Just to show you that such forms of accountability as are left in our
slightly tattered system of checks and balances are worth keeping, the upcoming
hearing on Al Gonzales for attorney general has already borne fruit. Voila!
The Justice Department has come out with a new memo on torture saying it is
not necessarily limited to "excruciating and agonizing pain." Say,
what a triumph for human rights.

"Further, the memo says, "Torture is abhorrent to both American law
and values, and to international norms." So there. In other words, we have
repealed the infamous Gonzales memo, just in time for his hearing.

"Now, I’m not going to conclude that Fascism Is Upon Us just because we
have an administration that not only can’t find the Constitution but apparently
doesn’t know there is one. Too early in the year for that. Long way to go. Got
to save your indignation. But it is unpleasantly reminiscent of Watergate, isn’t
it? That’s what we’re looking at here, folks — not just constitutional deafness,
but moral turp as well. All we need is one bag job and an alert night security
man. "