I see no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to Alberto Gonzales’ nomination as attorney general, so I thought I’d just offer a round-up of important items.
* Michael Froomkin does a great job recapping Gonzales’ role in the Plame Game scandal.
* The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza wrote a piece two years ago, which the magazine’s site is republishing, detailing Gonzales’ record from Texas. The piece was written with a Supreme Court nomination in mind, but the information is just as applicable.
* The LA Times ran an editorial today calling Gonzales a “disastrous choice to lead the Justice Department.”
* The Liquid List has some very interesting excerpts about Gonzales from an Atlantic Monthly piece on 57 confidential death-penalty memoranda Gonzales prepared as legal counsel to Governor Bush in the late ’90s.
* And, as usual, the Center for American Progress pulls it all together in fact-sheet style with 10 reasons Gonzales’ record should give all reasonable people pause.
So, is there any chance Dems are going to fight this nomination? Everything I hear is they won’t. With 44 members, they have to pick their fights and this probably won’t be one of them — unless something truly stunning comes out during the hearings.
Senate Dems figure a) Gonzales will be better than Ashcroft; b) there will be little-to-no public outrage about Gonzales for them to build off of, and c) they’ll save their collective political energy for a fight over a Supreme Court nominee.