Coleen Rowley: The Law School Commencement Speech that Alberto Gonzales Did Not Give

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From HuffPost:


Coleen Rowley

05.20.2007
The Law School Commencement Speech that Alberto Gonzales Did Not Give (4 comments )

I doubt whether most "loyal Bushie" Alberto Gonzales would have questioned why it is that, with so many law-trained people around, so many in these last few years haven't used their critical thinking skills better to uphold the rule of law in our country. So when AG Gonzales got too busy trying to remember things and couldn't make their commencement, I decided to tell the 2007 Iowa law graduates what he probably wouldn't have.

(What a pleasant surprise to learn, only a couple days after my speech below, that government lawyers like Deputy AG Comey, FBI Director Robert Mueller and even former AG Ashcroft had, in fact, been using their skills to resist Gonzales' lawless ways.)

No Time for Pettifoggery: Too Many Challenges Await!
(Law Commencement at Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, Iowa, May 12, 2007)

Thank you for the great honor today of being able to congratulate you and hopefully give you some words of wisdom and encouragement as your graduating class heads off to face the difficult, mind-boggling challenges of this new millennium.

A funny thing happened on the way to this forum. A few weeks ago a Google hit popped up that told me I was not first pick for commencement speaker but that I had only been asked after embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was unable to make it. Guess the Attorney General got too busy studying or something. So that reminded me of one of my favorite ethics quotes by Mark Twain who once said: "Never lie. And then you don't have to remember anything." Of course, the only other way around this problem, as Alberto must have figured out, is just not to remember anything. In any event, someday, if YOU remember, you'll be able to tell your grandchildren that instead of having one of the most "loyal Bushies" at your commencement, you got one of the least loyal Bushies. (It should go without saying that all of us who swore oaths to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, could never make political loyalty our top consideration.)

What a deal. This is just unbelievable to be invited back to my alma mater 27 years after I sat in the same place as you. Especially since I was one of the non-conformists of my class.

...(snip)...

I hope, by this point, it's no longer considered radical to point out our country is in a mess, in umpteen ways, certainly foreign policy wise, fiscal wise, climate and environment wise but also legal and constitutional crisis-wise. So many constitutional scholars and concerned citizens have been sounding the warning about the huge pendulum swing -- what I call "Green Light On" to shredding the Constitution. We've been like the frog in warm water, learning of one constitutional infraction after another on the part of government officials: from "extraordinary renditions", use of "black sites", authorization of torture, illegal monitoring of communications, politicization of entire government agencies, to obtaining records and maintaining lists of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and finally what should have prompted the frog to hop out of that boiling water -- even deleting the Writ of Habeas Corpus -- a fundamental right that's been around well over 300 years, predating the Constitution. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/the-law-school-commenceme_b_48916.html