Gonzales Confirmed -- Torture Is A Go
Just when I say I'm not going to write about politics, something so nasty comes up and I feel I have to put something down, if only to get it out of my system. Alberto Gonzales was confirmed 60-36-4. Six Democrats, including Holy Joe Lieberman, voted for torture. The GOP talking point was that Gonzales should be confirmed because he was Hispanic. Their best points are always the exact opposite of what they really think. They also claimed he was qualified. In that, they would be wrong. In crafting various positions for the White House, Gonzales has shown that he has no real regard for the principles of the Rule of Law.
Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, gave a passionate speech about his no vote.
But, embodying the American dream is not a sufficient qualification to be Attorney General of the United States. The Attorney General is the people's lawyer, not the President's lawyer. He is charged with upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. The Attorney General must be independent, and he must be clear that abuses by our Government will not be tolerated. Judge Gonzales's appearance before the Judiciary Committee raised serious questions about his ability to be that force in the Justice Department. That is why I am going to vote against him.
The closing part is just brutal, and you can't help but cringe when you read it, know that McCain voted for this man.
I will tell my colleagues about one of our men and what that man said about his treatment by the Vietnamese:
"It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment. Having no one else to rely on, to share confidences with, to seek counsel from, you begin to doubt your judgment and your courage."
Here, I would make an editorial comment that this man knows about any other kind of treatment. He was brutally beaten, limbs broken. So he knows what he is talking about.
The man who said these words was a Navy pilot, LCDR John McCain. For John McCain and all our soldiers serving across the globe, we need to stand against torture because of what it does to us as a country, to those serving now, to the future servicemen of our country, and what it does to us as a nation.
If we fail to oppose an evil as obvious as torture -- it is an evil and it is obvious it is wrong--then as President Thomas Jefferson said, I will "tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
I had always opposed John Ashcroft, especially hanging around EFF for some of his choice moves. But now I understand that old saying about "the devil you know."
