When Alberto Gonzales was sworn in as the 80th Attorney General back in February 2005, he addressed his fellow Department of Justice employees with remarks that included an exhortation they had "a special obligation to protect America against future acts of terrorism." But he provided an important caveat. "We will continue to make that our top priority while remaining consistent with our values and legal obligations. That will be the lodestar that guides us in our efforts at the Department."
Now we have learned that Gonzales has resigned. In an all-too-typical example of Bush White House modus operandi, the resignation, which was submitted last Friday morning, was hushed up for public announcement until today. What this was supposed to gain the U.S. in terms of security is unknown and probably unknowable. It is systematic, however, of the obfuscation and hypocrisy that marked every aspect of Gonzales's time in Washington, both prior to and during his tenure as Attorney General.
If Gonzales wished to be judged by his adherence to the U.S. Constitution, international law, and plain basic decency, then he did not so much hitch his wagon to a (lode)star as he did his anchor. His violations of its basic rights and protections, so often in the name of fighting terrorism, are legion.
Just days after the September 11 attacks, Gonzales drafted Executive Order 13233, ultimately issued by President Bush in November 2001, that attempted to place limitations on the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access to the records of former presidents.
Gonzales wrote a memo in January 2002 that evaluated whether Article III of the Geneva Convention applied to detained al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. He concluded that Geneva was outdated for modern warfare, dismissing its protections as "quaint."
Gonzales is most infamous for authoring an August 2002 memo that stretched the definition of torture, such that only the most severe types were not permissible under U.S. and international law, in order to safely allow the U.S. to carry out questionable practices, such as water boarding, on foreign detainees. He is also believed to have recommended deporting foreign combatants in U.S. custody to nations allowing torture, in order to extract further information from them.
Since Gonzales became Attorney General, both the Justice Department and FBI have been accused of warrantless wiretapping and other potentially improper and illegal means to uncover personal information about U.S. citizens under the auspices of the U.S. Patriot Act.
When the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush Administration in 2006, saying detainees at Guantanamo Bay could not be tried by tribunals set up by the President without review or approval by Congress, Gonzales strongly criticized their decision. He insisted that something as simple as an avowal of the principle of independent judicial review had "hampered [the U.S. government's] ability" to deal with terrorists.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January of this year, Gonzales outraged the panel, including iconic Republican member, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, by denying the existence of the right of habeas corpus. Article One, Section 9 of the Constitution contains the clause, "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
In direct opposition to historical interpretation, Gonzales insisted, ". . . there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it's never been the case [it's expressly granted]."
By the time of his resignation, members of Congress from both Parties were calling for his impeachment. In November 2006, legal proceedings were started in Germany for Gonzales's involvement, under command responsibility, in prisoner abuse as a result of his written legal opinions supporting such abuses.
Where his own alleged misdeeds were concerned, Gonzales often took refuge in ignorance of the law or just plain ignorance. Whatever the issue in question, Gonzales never disputed facts or corroborated testimony but simply insisted he could not remember anything about the event.
He also seems to have practiced the insularity favored by his boss, President Bush. When questioned about illegal wiretapping by the FBI, his subordinates could not immediately determine whether Gonzales read any of the FBI reports on the matter in 2005 and 2006.
Gonzales turned out to be, in short, everything those who opposed his nomination most feared at the time - a political crony who placed loyalty to his President above serving the People and standing for independent integrity at Justice.
President Bush practiced his own insular ignorance regarding the resignation. Even as the list of shameful acts by Gonzales grew and the chorus of voices against him grew both larger and more diverse, Bush is said to have accepted Gonzales's resignation only "very reluctantly."
Earlier this month at a news conference, Bush angrily insisted, "I haven't seen Congress say [Gonzales has] done anything wrong," and going so far as to blame the whole things on Congressional Democrats engaging in a massive and shameless "political exercise."
In the middle of his tenure at Justice, a profile of Gonzales by the Washington Post had the Attorney General stewing over how to explain to his ten-year-old son, Gabriel, exactly what it was he did for a living. At the time, his best effort consisted of the following - "I said, ‘Well, I go to a lot of meetings'."
What a confession this lighthearted explanation to his child proved to be. What a step down it documented from the lodestar of Constitutional champion to a faceless, memory-less, and unaccountable bureaucrat in the consistent deconstruction of civil liberties. Gonzales, like so many in the Bush Administration, combined ideological rationalization with irrational fear to justify any actions on the part of government.
Likewise, in his short resignation speech, Gonzales attempted to express a basic optimism by declaring, "Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days [as an impoverished migrant worker in Texas]." Once again, it represents the tremendous step down that has been taken by the Bush Administration in defining the American dream.
There was a time when we aspired to be a City on the Hill and a beacon to the rest of the world - not through empty rhetoric but by the integrity of our actions. Today, we cower as we hide our light under a bushel and hiss at those who do not appreciate we are (a little) better than the terrorists as unpatriotic.
It reveals the eloquent but empty courage of his initial remarks to be nothing but a load of crap . . . or perhaps more appropriately in this case, a lode of stardust.
