Posted on: Thursday, January 27, 2005

EDITORIAL
Gonzales nomination brings nation shame

Hawai'i's senators divided yesterday over the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, Inouye voting aye, Akaka voting nay.

That's the sort of ambivalence we've felt over the Rice nomination all along. She's exceedingly well qualified for the job, yet it's regrettable that she's entirely escaped accountability for her part in leading the nation to war for reasons that have come up empty.

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," she famously told us.

Ambivalence is no problem, however, with the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. His record disqualifies him from becoming attorney general, whose job it is to ensure that America is a nation in which justice prevails.

That record begins with Gonzales' service as counsel to George Bush when he was governor of Texas. In his memos to Bush before each of 152 executions, Gonzales repeatedly failed to mention conflicts of interest, mitigating evidence and even evidence of innocence.

Gonzales carried this studied recklessness to new heights when he produced for President Bush the now repudiated memo that narrowed the definition of torture and declared the Geneva Conventions "obsolete."

Gonzales' written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms, in the view of The Washington Post, that "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."

Not only does this approach visit great shame on our nation, but it puts Americans in uniform in much greater danger of mistreatment should they be taken captive.

The Judiciary Committee yesterday advanced Gonzales' nomination in a straight party-line vote, 10-8. Republican senators are expected to use their 55-44 advantage to confirm him as early as next week.

But we hope the vote will be about truth, justice and the nation's honor, not partisan one-upmanship.