i'm going to go out on a limb here and call bush's nomination of alberto gonzales as attorney general, good news. okay, "good news" is a little strong. if anyone else had nominated the author of a memo justifying the use of torture, i'd be screaming bloody murder. but, let's face it, any bush nominee for attorney general would be bad. if not a good thing, it could have been a lot worse.
gonzales as attorney general has at least has three advantages:
(1) this will keep him from being nominated to the supreme court. gonzales has always been on the short list of possible bush supreme court nominees. i think he would be a horrible justice, and his nomination as attorney general probably takes him out of the running. unlike a justice of the supreme court, the attorney general position is not a lifetime appointment. plus, if he's going to make bad decisions, i'd rather have him as an advocate than a final decision maker. an advocate, at least, has to convince someone else before the damage is done.
(2) gonzales is not ashcroft. ashcroft was probably the worst attorney general we have ever had. not only did he have the u.s. government take terrible positions in various lawsuits, order the covering of classical statues in the foyer of the justice department, and illegally use department funds for political purposes when he traveled the country to campaign for the renewal of the patriot act, ashcroft was also criminally incompetent in doing his job. in case after case, ashcroft decided the normal well-established rules did not apply. he presided over the interment of approximately 5000 muslims immediately following 9/11. most were held incommunicado for months. not a single one was ever charged with any crime, nor did any lead to any evidence justifying their detention. he repeatedly overreached in the justice department's own attempted prosecutions, denying, for example, the right of defendants to confront the evidence against them even when there was really no question under applicable precedent that they were entitled to it. as a result, a phenomenal number of high-profile cases collapsed on ashcroft's watch. the ashcroft justice department never obtained a single jury conviction for terrorism that withstood an appeal, a point that is particularly shocking when you consider that terrorism was supposedly the department's highest priority after 9/11. by contrast, the clinton administration scored numerous high-profile terrorism convictions (including, off the top of my head, the first WTC bombers, the oklahoma city bombers, the lincoln tunnel bomb plot). as bad as gonzales could be, it will be hard to imagine him to be as bad as ashcroft.
(3) gonzales is qualified for the job. one problem with ashcroft is that, although had a law license, he really had little recent experience in the practice of law. ashcroft was more of a politician than a lawyer. and so general ashcroft would do judicial no-nos like holding a press conference to discuss the details of a case even though speaking publicly about the case violated court-imposed gag orders. gonzales, on the other hand, has spent his career as either a judge or a lawyer. of course, some will point out that he was a particularly reactionary lawyer and represented dubious clients like enron, but we really can't expect much better from a bush appointee. and unlike ashcroft, at least, gonzales should have a basic understanding of how the legal system works and the code of professional conduct.
