Senate Confirms Gonzales as Attorney General on 60-36 Vote

WASHINGTON – Alberto Gonzales won Senate confirmation yesterday as attorney general despite Democratic accusations that he helped formulate White House policies that led to overseas prisoner abuse and was too beholden to President Bush to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.The Senate voted 60-36 to put the first Hispanic ever into the job, with all of the “no” votes coming from Democrats – including Senators Clinton and Schumer – and Democratic-leaning Independent James Jeffords of Vermont. Last week, 12 Democrats and Mr. Jeffords voted against Secretary of State Rice’s confirmation.Mr. Gonzales will replace John Ashcroft, who won more Democratic support four years ago despite contentious stances on a number of issues. Eight Democrats voted for Mr. Ashcroft, while six voted for Mr. Gonzales.Republicans and some Democrats praised Mr. Gonzales’s life story: the grandson of Mexican immigrants who worked his way up to being Mr. Bush’s top lawyer in the White House.Senator Martinez, a Republican of Florida and the first Cuban-American senator, even broke with Senate tradition and praised Gonzales in Spanish on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “This is a breakthrough of incredible magnitude for Hispanic-Americans,” he said in English.Democrats praised Mr. Gonzales as well, but many said they couldn’t look past his participation in administration policies they said had led to abuses that occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They also complained that he refused to answer their questions on how those policies were created inside the White House.“Mr. Gonzales was at the heart of the Bush administration’s notorious decision to authorize our forces to commit flagrant acts of torture in the interrogation of detainees,” said Senator Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts.At first, many Democrats had joined Republicans in praising the former state judge who traveled with Mr. Bush to Washington after the president’s 2000 victory.“When Mr. Gonzales was nominated several weeks ago, I didn’t know a single member of this body, Republican or Democrat, who had expressed any intention to vote against this nominee,” said Senator Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut.But some Democrats turned against him after he sidestepped questions on what advice he gave Mr. Bush and other administration officials on the interrogation methods that could be used on suspected terrorists or witnesses.Some Democrats contended that Mr. Gonzales’s January 2002 memo as White House counsel led to the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.Pressed on the issue, Mr. Gonzales defended language in which he labeled as “quaint” some of the Geneva Conventions’ human-rights protections for prisoners of war and said they did not extend to Al Qaeda and other suspected terrorists.But he also declared, “Torture and abuse will not be tolerated by this administration.” He told senators that, as attorney general, he would “ensure the Department of Justice aggressively pursues those responsible for such abhorrent actions.”Democrats also expressed concern that Mr. Gonzales was too much of a Bush loyalist.“He was so circumspect in his answers, so allied with the president’s position on every single issue, there was almost an eagerness to say, ‘I’m going to do exactly what the president wants,’ that I worry Judge Gonzales will be too willing to toe the party line,” said Mr. Schumer.Mr. Gonzales shouldn’t be a scapegoat for what happened overseas, Republicans said. They also insinuated that the Democrats wanted a big vote against Mr. Gonzales to keep Mr. Bush from making him the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee if a position opens up.“Here is a good man who has demonstrated tremendous ability through his life,” said Senator Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma. “The fact is, politics is getting in the way of his confirmation.”The Democrats who voted for Mr. Gonzales were Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Kenneth Salazar of Colorado, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, William Nelson of Florida, Benjamin Nelson of Nebraska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Democrats argued that they had a right to closely question all nominees, whether supporting them or not.“I think it is a mistake for this chamber to allow the race card of being Hispanic to be used to destroy or erode the institutions that we have here,” said Mr. Salazar.

Senate Confirms Gonzales as Attorney General on 60-36 Vote

Senate Confirms Gonzales as Attorney General on 60-36 Vote

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