I'll say it again...Gonzales is a bad appointment

Please see this from today's Washington Post about the written response to Senate Judiciary questions that Alberto Gonzales submitted in anticipation of his confirmation as attorney general. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36718-2005Jan25.html One choice quote:

"According to President Bush's closest legal adviser, this administration continues to assert its right to indefinitely hold foreigners in secret locations without any legal process; to deny them access to the International Red Cross; to transport them to countries where torture is practiced; and to subject them to treatment that is "cruel, inhumane or degrading," even though such abuse is banned by an international treaty that the United States has ratified. In effect, Mr. Gonzales has confirmed that the Bush administration is violating human rights as a matter of policy."

I am not a lawyer, and therefore feel less qualified than I'd like to make all the arguments one ought to make here. As a citizen, though, I feel more than equipped to say, once again, that this one is a no-brainer. Yes, to paraphrase David Gergen (on another appointment), President Bush won the election, and should get to appoint the people he wants to his team. But, there are larger considerations here. And when we knowingly, willingly confirm a person as the chief representative of law enforcement in our land, who knowingly, willingly not only disregards international law on human rights and torture with impunity, but also advocates for positions that, I thought, a national consensus has deemed wholly immoral, we are not only making a critical mistake, but also making ourselves complicit in the commitment of those immoral acts.

There's no stopping his confirmation. But that doesn't mean we have to be complicit. Speak out, and you're not complicit. Tell your Senator how you feel, and you're not complicit. Someday, when we're even deeper in the hole cleaning up the international and security damage that the positions Mr. Gonzales advocates have and will continue to create, it could be pretty important to be able to indicate that at least some percentage of the American citizenry found his views on this subject, and his subsequent appointment to Attorney General, wholly intolerable.