Been listening live (from what I can tell, it's scheduled to go another couple of hours, so you can still tune in!) to the Senate confirmation hearing for the Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales. It's both entertaining and sad. Senators are asking tough questions (after blowing a bunch of sunshine his way), the nominee is doing plenty of ducking, and senators are calling him on it. Very fun to listen to. The sad thing is that even though there are significant questions around his judgement and ability to be a servant of the people and not just a puppet of the President, it is a given that he will be the new attorney general. I've heard several senators say something to the effect of, "I'd like the record to reflect that you're a pinhead for giving the green light to torture people, but you'll get confirmed anyway."
I don't know enough about him to have an opinion as to whether he should be confirmed or not, but the purpose of this hearing seems to be to help decide wether or not to confirm him. With so many concerns voiced, why is the confirmation a given? If the information that comes out as a result of the hearing has no bearing on whether he will get confirmed, is this just a stage for people to make some statements "for the record"? Some of the concerns raised have been with the administration and those shouldn't have a bearing, but some are with his judgement of what's right and wrong and his denial of responsibility for the consequences that his decisions have had. That's some serious stuff and you'd think that even if it wasn't enough to keep him from being confirmed, it would be enough to keep his confirmation from being a forgone conclusion.
Posted by kstroke at January 6, 2005 01:22 PM