FishWrap
Today’s Red Herring.
What’s the most important thing about White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who President Bush nominated yesterday to replace Attorney General John D. Ashcroft?
That he would be the first Hispanic attorney general?
That he has been a longtime and deeply loyal friend to the president?
That he championed legal arguments that some critics say laid the groundwork for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison?Clearly, all three are important. The first is neat. The second is telling. The third is horrifying, if true.
I was surprised to read that of 12 headlines this writer surveyed only three made any reference to the policy memo Gonzales wrote to the President which concluded that detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq were not qualified to recieve the protections laid out int he Geneva Convention. This and other Gonzales policies laid the groundwork for the torture that later occurred at Abu Ghriab prison. And those three combined the torture with friendlier stuff:
- Reuters: Son of migrant workers; Bush confidant; shaper of legal opinions about prisoner treatment.
- CBS Evening News: Loyal longtime ally; under fire for legal arguments in war on terror.
- Associated Press: Helped shape controversial legal strategy in the war on terror; first Hispanic.
As far as I can tell, none of these news outlets went into any detail about the torture memo. This seems very strange to me, as I, personally, would not want an attorney general who advocates the use of torture.
Shouldn’t every news outlet be filling us in on the details of chain of events that started with Gonzales’ policy memos, and ended with naked prisoners being forced to perform degrading acts while US soldiers looked on and laughed?
