Originally posted by: Zebo
This guy is automatic cause dems would find it hard to oppose the first Hispanic attorney general nominee, however he has serious issues. Check this out:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/stor...=&reportID=1162625
1. He was at the centre of the effort to publicly defend the administration's policy of holding prisoners captured in the so-called 'war on terror' without access to lawyers or the courts - a stance that was opposed by the Supreme Court.
2. He also wrote a memo dating to February 2002 memo in which the Bush administration claimed the right to ignore international treaties prohibiting torture of prisoners. Campaigners said that memo led directly to the sort of abuses that were uncovered at Abu Ghraib and which have been alleged at Guantanamo Bay.
3. But the controversy surrounding Mr Gonzales dates back further, to the time when he worked as general counsel to Mr Bush when he was Governor of Texas.
An article published last year by Atlantic Monthly examined Mr Gonzales's role in the preparation of memos to Mr Bush on 57 death penalty cases in which the governor was required to consider the granting of clemency.
The magazine's investigation found that Mr Gonzales "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence".
The magazine said Mr Gonzales appeared to exclude factors such as "mental illness or incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation or racial discrimination in jury selection".
Mr Bush allowed the executions to proceed in all but one of the 57 cases, including that of Terry Washington, a thirty-three-year-old mentally retarded man with the communications skills of a seven-year-old.