NEWS ALERT 3:43 PM ET BUSH PICKS GONZALES

[hangloose]

Bush Picks Alberto Gonzales to Replace John Ashcroft
Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel and one of President Bush's closest advisers, now faces Senate confirmation


http://www.nytimes.com/

[Richardo]

1. torture with impunity! The Constitution is 'quaint', too!

:eyes:

[livinbella]

3. I can't think of a worse man for the job

Will the Dems fight this, or will they fall asleep?
This is the acid test for the next four years.

[Occulus]

2. This means no SCOTUS appointment for him

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. /sarcasm

[yellowcanine]

6. Not so fast - Here is my theory. Get the Abu Grabe dirt out of the way

during the nominating hearings for the AG and let Gonzalez have a period of time to demonstrate that he does not trash the Constitution as blatently as Ashcroft (How hard could that be?).
Then, when a SCOTUS slot opens up Gonzalez will be "innoculated" on the torture scandal AND on Constitutional issues.

[dogtag]

4. CNN just showed the press conference. (no qustions)

Weird. Shrub's country boy accent has all but disappeared. He's all smiley and filled with good cheer. "Al" Gonzales comes off as a nice 'pulled himself up by the bootstraps' gnome who woudn't tell a fib much less screw over the Geneva Convention.

Oh my, Shrub is so very busy today...flitting here and there, hither and yon...being presidential to the nines. He's got so much going on that there won't be any airtime for those nasty tin foil hat rumors of election fraud!

[hangloose]

5. This is the same Lawyer who wrote memos authorizing

prisoner torture and is now slated to succeed Ashcroft. It's getting chilly.

[Massacure]

7. Better there where we can get rid of him in 2008 than on the Supreme Court

[sofa king]

8. Dr. Joseph Mengele to be named Surgeon General.

Well, maybe not. But only 'cause the bastard is dead.

[Edmond Dantes]

9. I'd like to point out that Gonzales was, in all likelihood,

heavily influenced by his right-wing crackpot principal deputy at the time--Timothy E. Flanigan. Flanigan, a Mormon who is chummy with Orrin Hatch, is undoubtedly responsible for the torture memoranda that came out of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (where he served as Asst. Attorney General in Bush I).

Gonzales is actually frowned upon by the Ashcroft/Olson types who view him as insufficiently conservative.

I'm concerned that we will end up with someone like Ted Olson or Tim Flanigan or David Leitch (former Rehnquist clerk and general counsel of FAA on 9/11) as new White House Counsel.

And what exactly is Hatch up to now that he is no longer chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

[Moderator]

10. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=976240