Can Alberto Gonzales be any more of a crap candidate for AG? The more you learn, the worse it is. The bastard is already known for being responsible for the leeway taken at Abu Ghraib for “softening up” prisoners, now we hear are going to hear about the bastard’s key role behind the Bush admin’s anti-gay initiatives. The president has real balls putting this guy up, but let’s see if anyone is going to play hardball during questioning. I’m not holding my breath. (365Gay.com):

Senate confirmation hearings for White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales will begin Thursday amid allegations Gonzales secretly helped write the Federal Marriage Amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The American Civil Liberties Union said on Wednesday that Gonzales’ White House office undertook the legal thinking behind Bush’s decision to support the amendment and helped formulate the legal framework for it and for the president’s ‘faith-based initiative’ which would allow faith groups to circumvent local laws which prevent discrimination against gay and lesbian workers.

In discussing the administration’s consideration of the Federal Marriage Amendment, Bush announced in August 2003 that he had assigned ‘lawyers’ to examine the different legislative approaches to banning same-sex marriage. ‘Although President Bush did not identify Gonzales as one of the assigned lawyers, the Senate Judiciary Committee ought to explore Gonzales’s role on the issue,’ the ACLU said in a statement Wednesday.

‘Gonzales, who may have been responsible for the legal vetting of the different amendatory approaches, should make clear his position on the Musgrave-Allard amendments, which would bar all marriage rights for same-sex couples, and would likely ban civil unions,’ the ACLU said.”

No one should forget this. We’re the “shining beacon of democracy.”

It is also likely that Gonzales will be questioned on his role in developing legal arguments that permitted aggressive interrogation tactics in the months after 9/11, and denying detainees in the “war on terror” any formal legal protections. He is also expected to be asked if the White House counsel’s office played the leading role in creating the system by which the president could move American citizens from the criminal justice system into detention as “enemy combatants,” without any formal due process protections.