Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced his resignation, effective Sept. 17. He did his damage, though: a top U.S. official lying and usurping the system to control it the way he wanted.†Still, who was Gonzales? What did he do, and what were his feats?
In 1994, Gonzales was hired as general counsel to Gov. George W. Bush and served until 1997. During that time, also under Bush, he oversaw 57 executions and participated in inner-circle dialogues on whether to pardon for two executions. Terry Washington, who was convicted of murder, was deemed mentally deficient by medical analysis. He was still executed. Karla Faye Tucker, for whom Pope John Paul II asked for clemency, was also convicted of murder and executed.
In 1998, he served as Texas Secretary of State, and in 1999 he was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court -†all under Bush.
In 2001, Gonzales was named as one of the White House’s legal counsels. During this period he wrote a memo diminishing the importance of the Geneva Conventions to a take-what-you-want-and-throw-the-rest-away policy. He said the conventions did not pertain to the situation in Afghanistan and al-Qaida.
In November 2001, Gonzales took hold of the newly created military commissions to put alleged terrorists on trial. In 2004 he was appointed attorney general and sworn in the following year. Also that year, Eric Rudolph, an American wanted in the bombings of two abortion clinics, the 1999 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and a gay nightclub, struck a bargain to take a life sentence instead of the death penalty, a deal which Gonzales supported. In light of his past endeavors, Gonzales has seemingly contradicted himself in Rudolph’s case.
In 2006, Gonzales testified that the controversial wire-tapping program was legal; his next step was to upgrade the program to follow Internet records, taking Google to court because it refused to give online records to him.
In December 2006, eight federal prosecutors were fired for what many allege to have been political purposes. During a Senate investigation into the matter, Gonzales must have said "I don’t recall" more than 50 times.
I don’t know if saying that you are so bad at your job that you don’t remember anything is technically lying, but it didn’t make him look that smart.
And then, on Aug. 27, he announced his resignation from his current post.
Gonzales was Bush-driven. Since the beginning, under Texas law, Bush was there to hone and guide his pawn to perfection. He stayed through his mishandlings and incompetence. Ultimately, his protector could do no more for him. Once Democrats took control of Congress, Gonzales’ freedom to do what he "needed" was shot down.
Things could have been better, though, if Congress served as a group to oversee the attorney general. Unfortunately, the recent corruption scandals and extreme partisanship that has plagued Congress only left Gonzales more room to usurp liberties from the American people. The checks and balances that were written into the Constitution were only ink on paper during Gonzales’s time.
The position of attorney general shouldn’t be taken lightly-†even if it’s another political appointee from the president. But now with Gonzales gone, another task is on deck: rebuilding the tarnished American reputation, on both the domestic and international front.
Cunha, a communication junior, can be reached via [email protected]
