The Gonzales Legacy

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Alberto Gonzales’s sorry tenure in the Bush administration would seem to give credence to Shakespeare’s oft-cited incitement against the legal profession.

The primary responsibility of the Attorney General is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States in a fair and even-handed manner. In failing to comprehend this responsibility, Alberto Gonzales compromised himself, his office, the Constitution, and ultimately even the President who appointed him.

The responsibility every Attorney General owes the nation is to raise hard legal and constitutional questions within the administration whenever the President is tempted to overreach the limits of his authority. Gonzales, however, chose to function more like the President’s personal legal strategist, doing everything in his power to justify the President’s apparent desire to authorize torture, deny detainees access to the writ of habeas corpus, order unlawful electronic surveillance, and institute legal proceedings that defy due process of law.

There is no excuse, other than cronyism and personal weakness, for Gonzales’s confusion about his appropriate role, and in point of fact, he and future office holders could learn much from the extraordinarily disciplined and principled actions of some of his predecessors who also served our nation in perilous times.

After the outbreak of World War II, Attorney General Robert Jackson warned the nation’s prosecutors that “times of fear or hysteria” have often resulted in cries “for the scalps” of those with dissenting views. He exhorted his U.S. Attorneys to steel themselves to be “dispassionate and courageous” in dealing with “so-called subversive activities.”

After Franklin Roosevelt appointed Jackson to the Supreme Court, he was succeeded as Attorney General by Francis Biddle. On December 15, 1941, Biddle reminded the nation that in time of war, “hysteria and fear and hate” run high, and “every man who cares about freedom must fight to protect it for other men” as well as for himself. Even when Roosevelt pressured his Attorney General to prosecute those who criticized his policies, Biddle courageously resisted. Later, when the public began to call for the wholesale internment of individuals of Japanese descent, Biddle furiously opposed such a policy as “ill-advised, unnecessary, and unnecessarily cruel.”

In a face-to-face meeting with Roosevelt, Biddle told the President that such a program could not be justified “as a military measure.” Although Roosevelt overrode Biddle’s objections largely for political reasons, he later rightly observed that the episode had shown “the power of suggestion which a mystic cliché like ‘military necessity’ can exercise.” He added sadly that because of a lack of independent courage and faith in American” values, the nation had missed a unique opportunity to “assert the human decencies for which we were fighting.”

In 1971, the public began to learn that the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the Army had engaged in a widespread program of investigation and secret surveillance of anti-Vietnam war protesters in an effort “to expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize” the antiwar movement. A congressional committee found that the government, “operating primarily through secret informants,” had “undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs,” and that the FBI alone had “developed over 500,000 domestic intelligence files” on public officials, journalists, entertainers, professors, and ordinary citizens.

In the face of such revelations, and in his role as Attorney General, Edward Levi created stringent guidelines which reiterated and reaffirmed the rights of all Americans by clearly and carefully circumscribing the investigative authority of the FBI. The “Levi guidelines” expressly prohibited the FBI from investigating, discrediting, or disrupting any group or individual on the basis of protected First Amendment activity. These guidelines were rightly hailed as a major advance in law enforcement and a critical step forward in protecting the rights of American citizens against overzealous and misguided government officials. Alberto Gonzales helped eviscerate the Levi guidelines during the years of the Bush presidency.

Of course, it is not all Gonzales’s fault.  In truth, he should never have had the privilege of serving as Attorney General of the United States. Robert Jackson, Francis Biddle, and Edward Levi were men of great intellectual distinction, integrity, and character. Alberto Gonzales is not. But for his long-standing friendship with George W. Bush, he would never have been, and should never have been, within hailing distance of a position of such responsibility. He was in over his head.

By failing to protect American values and individual liberties, Alberto Gonzales has not just discredited himself, his office, and his profession. He has also compromised the Constitution. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It is worth recalling that these words were uttered in Henry VI not by a lawyer’s disgruntled client, but by a conspirator in Cade’s Rebellion who was plotting to overthrow the rights and liberties of the English people. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” It is men like Robert Jackson, Francis Biddle, and Edward Levi who represent the highest ideals of public service and the true spirit of the legal profession. It is men like Alberto Gonzales who give the profession a bad name.

Comments

[The Dude]

Also, LAK, how can you call the religious ignorant and then reach athiest conclusions? (I take this from your "wasting your one life" comment.) From a logical perspective, the best you can conclude is that you have no idea what happens upon death. It really isn't hard to imagine that our consciousnesses are not bound to our body-- hell, this sort of alternate reality could be created by computers in a 100 years. I'd be really interested to hear support for a "one and only life" theory. To me, it seems to require an equal leap of faith with various religious conclusions.

[LAK]

Equal leap dude? Hardly. The bset I can do, no, not really. While I admit the issue is open for debate, Consciouness, while mysterious and unexplained, does have a demonstrated nexus to the brain, which is made of human flesh, which we know plenty about, and which does not last forever. While not conclusive, the overwhelming evidence points to the fact that consicouness/spirit doesn't exist without a body to house it. And bodies die. We know that. I've never seen an angel or ghost, or talked with the dead, nor am I aware of any credible documented instances of anyone else doing it. I have however seen plenty of dead bodies, and not one of them talked to or otehrwise communicated its presence to me. I do know how anesthesia can suspend consciousness. I do know how consciousness deteriorates with age. Indeed there is plenty of evidence favoring the one interpretation over the other, even if not conclusive.

[Joan A. Conway]

Oh wait, my faux Hitler reference was unneeded: frequent poster and English-languish-challenged Joan A. Conway violated Godwin's law in the second comment. I think this is telling about Stone's posts.

What is Godwin's law.

Stone's post, in this example, is shot from the hip, and void of being context-dependent upon the subject of which he speaks, Gonzales Legacy, a Mexican-American with parents of unknown citizenship in the United States. Is Alberto of the first generation Mexican(s) or of the second generation Mexican(s)? I don't think anyone accurately knows the answer. So Stone's comments suggest others might be responsible of Gonzales' bent to put into place unconstitutional laws, simply because it is political to do so! He did it in Texas, and I believe he did it in the United States. I might be wrong; but if Gonzales quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, he is indeed a duck!

On the other hand, I am not a nasty faux Hitler suggested by The Dude! What is 'The Dude' but a pseudonym for a nameless entity blogging on this site. If you lie in the shawdows of a pen name, can anyone obtain the light from you?

Hilter left the world offering his manipulated victims a nasty choice to control them to the gas chambers. The choice I offer is most often based on an academic writer's research about the subject - the Mexican! Professor Stone's site doesn't take into perspective 'the Mexican's tradition.' Like I said, he was talking directly to us without context.

[Joan A. Conway]

I once spelled out the difficulties of performing my blog at the Chicago Public Library, and now I am on the 15 minute express. Sorry for the delay blog(s) of the past year.

Now comparing the limited choices offered by Prof. Stone's comments on Gonzales, most Americans want pithy comments without context. He was just being commerical.

Unfortunately, I am often upset about the police jargon associated with the pithy requirements asked by Bill O'Reilly's Factor.

I have been his volunteer, and not the only one by the way, since April 1999, during the Columbine crisis.

We known each other intimately, because I leaned upon him during my years at a third-rate hotel with inadequate housing during my lawsuit(s).

I have provided the context of many of his subjects in the past.

The Follow the Yellow Brick Road or Critical Path theme was mine, the 2000-election John Barleycorn theme was mine, and much else was mine based on my extensive read, such as the interlude coming the day of the 911 crisis. I have proven to be a ' Miss Cleo.'

Because I am having hip surgery, I do not volunteer anymore, since I am at the YMCA exercising, where I should be right now.

I just got hustled by the security guard to get off the 15 minute express. Naturally I mentioned Robert Reed, the head of security to send her away. What a ploy! She held the door open for me and before that she mentioned that I was coming back. Now the chief Librarian gets into the act with his notice that it is a 15 minute express. Again I mentioned Robert Reed and harassment.

I am waiting for my hour on the computer.

[Kimball Corson]

The Gonzales Legacy is not necessarily a legal one. It is more in the vein of that of Rochester, the old bulter to Jack Benny, I think it was. As Rochester always said, "Yes, Sir, Boss." Gonzales seemed to do no differently with Bush. His legal rationalizations, too, are about on par with those we might have expected from Rochester.

[Kimball Corson]

LAK,

Check out the Seth books by Jane Roberts, the most checked out volumes of the Yale Library system, where the originals works are still held. Much is said about consciousness. Forget how the information was purportedly obtained and consider its own structural integrity and credibility. Seth contributions have been the basis of much scientific research in the last few decades, including much of the sleep research done at Harvard.

[Joan A. Conway]

He was no Rochester in the Death State Texas, and I don't expect he was one in D.C. He learned that it was political to allow unconstitutional laws to sip through the bureaucratic cracks, and he did so. He became quite political on his own accord, helping Bush deny prisoners their lives.