Speedy Gonzalez

Well that was quick.

WASHINGTON - President Bush has chosen White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, a Texas confidant and the most prominent Hispanic in the administration, to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, sources close to the White House said Wednesday.

I don't want to call this a mistake, but this does put Abu Ghraib right back on the table. I maintain that not talking about the prison abuse scandal was the biggest mistake of the election, and now the AG nominee is the guy who wrote the infamous "torture memo," which gave the President an out to claim indemnity over national and international treaties providing anti-torture and POW protections. Specifically, the memo wrote, "In my judgment, this new paradigm [the war on terror] renders obsolete Geneva's [i.e., the Geneva Convention's] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

The document was a marvel of twisted logic, asserting executive powers not given by the Constitution, and is the most obvious application of the last four years of Presidential arrogance. If the Democrats in the Senate had the spine for it, Gonzalez could (and should) be tarred with the Abu Ghraib brush.

Never mind that Gonzalez was also the chief lawyer for Enron, too.