Always suited up in black, like one who hides or reveals his neurotic qualities depending on the outward/inner lense one uses to look at him, Alberto Gonzalez, Bush's Attorney General, seems to be a man void of principles, high intellect, or moral convictions, except for the one unequivocal principle of always serving his master: one George W. Bush.
How unlike Benito Juarez who evolved from an illiterate teen to a literate man who used the knowledge he gained through reading and studies to work for the rights and betterment of the Mexican people, who was considered to be a protector of human liberties and who was proclaimed Outstanding Patriot of the Americas.
A man who believed that,
"Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others".
Alberto Gonzalez, the second born of a poor immigrant Mexican family, having taken advantage of every gift this American Democracy offered him and his family, now labors instead to take away the rights of others by approving Bush's Military Tribunals, Bush's Right to Torture, Bush's Right to take away the Writ of Habeas Corpus and who later goes on to support his impudent claim in an exchange with Senator Specter during the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Thursday, January 18, 2007 by stating that,
"there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away"
Although, as Specter points out,
"Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The constitution says you can't take it away ... Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, ..."
To which Alberto Gonzalez still, in defending himself and defending his Master, replies,
"I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn't say, "every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas. It doesn't say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by –"
To which Senator Specter replies,
"You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General."
Alberto Gonzalez, a man who looks scornfully a the Constitution and at those United State Senators who know the law and the Constitution, labors to take away people's rights and tear down the Constitution of the United States of America by lying to Congress, by giving non-answers when being questioned by the Senators in the Senate Judiciary Committee as in this exchange between himself and Senator Leahy who wanted to know why Maher Arar, A Canadian detained at in New York at JFK Airport during a stop there on his return to Canada, was not turned in to the Canadian authorities but was instead sent to Syria where American authorities knew full well that Arar would be tortured ,
GONZALEZ: ...I am just not at liberty, at this time, to ...
LEAHY:, Let me ask you this, Why aren't you at liberty? I don't understand that. It's not a matter of executive privilege.
GONZALEZ: No, I'm not suggesting that I will not be able to answer your questions. I am just suggesting I can't do it today."
.
How plainly clear to soul whisperers, conspiracy theorists, and uncoverers of dungeon bearing souls to see that Alberto Gonzalez was playing the role of a YES MAN who has sold his soul, his pocket and his reputation to Bush, to the Bush Family Evil Empire, and to protecting Bush's criminal actions. How easy to see that he was buying time to come up with some excuse that whoever runs to lies department in the Bush Family Evil Empire might think could pass the smell test.
Like Benito Juarez' beginnings which were humble, Gonzalez beginnings were humble as well, and while he seems to have traveled down a path that some might consider similar in some ways to Juarez's (the study of law and the pursuit of a political (?) career) Gonzalez's path is really a very different one.
After learning how to read and write, which he did in his teen years, Benito Juarez went to study law at the Instituto de Ciencias y Arte and from there embarked on a career that would eventually garner him the presidency of Mexico and the title of "protector of human liberties."
Unlike Juarez who cared deeply about principled governing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez seems to care little about the office of The Attorney General, an office created by the Judiciary Act of 1789 to represent the United States and to give advice and opinions to the President of the United States on matters of law. Alberto Gonzalez, sadly, is a man who has learned to use the advantages of his education to satisfy self by giving to the Master what the Master wants. He seems to have turned the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice into an Extension of the Bush Empire where the only laws that matter are the ones that Bush wants on the table, and the only attorneys assured of a job are those who are or will become Yes Bush Automatons while those who have any ounce of honesty, integrity or truthfulness to their names and to their jobs are fired willy nilly by the Attorney General. As Paul Krugman says in his OpEd piece published in the New York Times o 1/19/07 entitled Surging and Purging
"...the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice."
While a biography of Alberto Gonzalez in the Department of Justice Website lists a litany of honors received by Alberto Gonzalez from 1990 to the present, they are all for the most part awarded to him during interminable years of his link to the Bush family and the work he has done for them, or on their behalf. A truer presentation of Alberto Gonzalez' litany of achievements might look like this:
Teresa Simon-Noble is a computer activist for peace. She is a former mental health clinician. A poet and a freelance writer. Her work has been published in several online publications.
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