Former Houston attorney (former partner at Vinson & Elkins) and current White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was nominated by President Bush Wednesday to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, who announced Tuesday that he is stepping down after serving as attorney general during the first Bush Administration.
Mr. Gonzales is a close, longtime adviser to President Bush. The 49-year-old Mr. Gonzales has been frequently mentioned as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, but my sense is that there are numerous more qualified jurists for that position. The AG post is a much better fit for Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales would be the nation’s 80th attorney general and the first Hispanic to hold the job.
Mr. Gonzales has a remarkable background. The son of Mexican immigrant parents, Mr. Gonzales was born in San Antonio and grew up sharing a two-bedroom house in Houston with his migrant-worker parents and seven siblings. From there, he went on to graduate from Houston’s Rice University and Harvard Law School, and then to become a prominent Houston attorney who was involved in many community and state affairs. Mr. Gonzales has been with President Bush virtually from the start of his political career, as he served with then-Gov. Bush in Texas as general counsel, secretary of state and then as a Texas Supreme Court justice before becoming White House counsel.
Inasmuch as the Texas Supreme Court handles only civil cases, Mr. Gonzales had little experience in international law, national security law, or in criminal law when he came to Washington. But boy, did that change after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. As White House counsel, Gonzales transformed that office from one that concentrated on domestic issues to one increasingly focused on fighting the war against the radical Islamic fascists. Under Mr. Gonzales’s leadership, administration lawyers in the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the Justice Department elaborated on views that the war against the radical Islamic fascists was a new arena not covered by domestic laws or the Geneva Conventions and other treaties.
In particular, one potential blip in the confirmation process could be the Jan. 25, 2002 legal memo to the President in which Mr. Gonzales described the Geneva Convention on humane treatment of prisoners of war as “quaint” and “obsolete” in the war on terror. That legal opinion was intended to advise the President on the handling of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners captured in the war in Afghanistan. The Bush administration views those combatants as not covered by the Geneva protections and other treaties.
Nevertheless, most political pundits believe that Mr. Gonzales will be confirmed with little trouble, probably early in 2005.