Gonzales Wrong for Attorney General; Why Won't Bush pick a Pro-Life Nominee? American Life League.

usnewswire.com/ ^

[cpforlife.org]

To: National Desk

Contact: Amber Matchen of the American Life League, 540-903-9572 or amatchen@all.org

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Judie Brown, president of American Life League, issued the following statement in response to news that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales is being considered as the replacement for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft:

"President Bush appears to be doing all that he can to downright ignore pro-life principles. There can be no other explanation for his recommendation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. Gonzales has a record, and that record is crystal clear.

"As a Texas Supreme Court justice, Gonzales' rulings implied he does not view abortion as a heinous crime. Choosing not to rule against abortion, in any situation, is the epitome of denying justice for an entire segment of the American population -- preborn babies in the womb.

"When asked if his own personal feelings about abortion would play a role in his decisions, Gonzales told the Los Angeles Times in 2001 that his 'own personal feelings about abortion don't matter... The question is, what is the law, what is the precedent, what is binding in rendering your decision. Sometimes, interpreting a statute, you may have to uphold a statute that you may find personally offensive. But as a judge, that's your job.' Gonzales' position is clear: the personhood of the preborn human being is secondary to technical points of law, and that is a deadly perspective for anyone to take.

"President Bush claims he wants to assist in bringing about a culture of life. Such a culture begins with total protection for every innocent human being from the moment that person's life begins. Within the short period of one week, the president has been silent on pro-abortion Sen. Arlen Specter's desire to chair the senate judiciary committee, and has spoken out in favor of a judge with a pro-abortion track record to lead the Justice Department.

"Why is President Bush betraying the babies? Justice begins with protecting the most vulnerable in our midst. Please, Mr. President -- just say no to the unjust views of Alberto Gonzales."

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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[TAdams8591]

"would have much prefered a pro-life AG"

To make the comment above, to which you refer, more correctly state my position I would add, "more obviously" so that it would read thusly:

"would have much preferred a more obviously pro-life AG"

It's better for me is it better for you?

[deport]

One question...

Have you read the Jane Doe 5 opinion and studied it?

[Coleus]

Gonzales got the AG job while Priscella Owen will probably get the appointment to SCOUTS. I can deal with that. If it were the other way around then I would complain more.

Let's face it Roe v. Wade should be overturned, the has been a provision for the Human life amendment in the RNC platform for over 4 years, it's about time we act on it.

[Coleus]

What scares me is that the democrats LIKE Gonzales and Hated Ashcroft. That tells me something.

[cpforlife.org]

Exactly.

[H.Akston]

The same could indeed be said for those on life support.

Would you force by court order someone to share their organs with a critical patient, even if it could save that patient?

Even when a patient's life is in jeopardy, he can't borrow another person's body without consent, to sustain himself.

[radicalamericannationalist]

No, I was thinking more that your arguments could be used to declare those in comas non-persons. Folks like Peter Singer have used your logic to justify that and infanticide.

[cpforlife.org]

I think my point is reinforced below. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/12/politics/12cabinet.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

---

November 12, 2004

Choice of Gonzales May Blaze a Trail for the High Court

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and NEIL A. LEWIS

ASHINGTON, Nov. 11 - Republicans close to the White House said on Thursday that the choice of Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general was part of a political strategy to bolster Mr. Gonzales's credentials with conservatives and position him for a possible Supreme Court appointment.

These Republicans said Mr. Gonzales had been widely viewed as one of President Bush's top choices for the court. But by first sending him to the Justice Department, they said, Mr. Bush could then nominate a conservative favored by his political base to fill the first vacancy that arises.

For Mr. Gonzales, tenure as attorney general would allow him to demonstrate his reliability to conservative leaders, many of whom say they are unsure of his views on issues like abortion and affirmative action, Republicans said. One Republican said Mr. Gonzales's nomination hearings in Congress would also "get out of the way'' the debate over legal memorandums that Mr. Gonzales supervised as White House counsel. Civil rights groups say memorandums about the treatment of captured terrorism suspects appeared to endorse the torture of some prisoners and opened the door to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The strategy, which Republicans said was in large part the work of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, would clear the way for Mr. Bush to make his first nomination to the Supreme Court a trusted conservative, thus showing gratitude to his political base for the large role they played in giving him a second term.

"It's a thank you to the right for the election,'' said one Republican adviser to the White House. "And they think they need to strike now in the post-election glow.''

The theory, the Republican said, is that Mr. Bush will be at the apex of his power at the beginning of the second term, and in a strong position to battle Democrats in any Supreme Court confirmation fight. "So you do the toughest nominee first,'' the Republican said.

Presidents over the years have parked future candidates for the Supreme Court in other positions in order to bolster their résumés and improve their chances. Most often, however, potential nominees are first parked on federal appeals courts, the level just below the Supreme Court, not as attorneys general.

Friends of Mr. Gonzales also say that if he is not put up later for the Supreme Court, the Justice Department is hardly a consolation prize, given that he has long desired to become the nation's first Hispanic attorney general. Even so, the post has also proved to be a perilous one and has at times harmed careers, as in the case of Janet Reno's difficult experiences with the Branch Davidian conflagration in Waco, Tex., and her return of a young boy in Florida, Elián González, to relatives in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzales's appointment, Republicans said, reflected Mr. Bush's speed in moving to announce major personnel changes for his second term. They said the president's goal was to have all new appointments in place before Thanksgiving so that he can move quickly on his agenda after the inauguration in January.

For now, however, some of the most prominent members of the administration are remaining in place. Republicans outside the administration as well as White House officials said Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, would stay in her job, at least for now, although she is widely said to be interested in succeeding Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary. But Mr. Rumsfeld, Republicans said, wants to stay for the immediate future, if only to put the Abu Ghraib prison scandal well behind him.

There is also a consensus emerging in Republican and diplomatic circles that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will stay on into 2005 because of the international crises coming to a head - the difficulty of holding Iraqi elections scheduled for late January, impending showdowns with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs and negotiations in the Middle East after the death of Yasir Arafat. The United States may be more involved in working toward a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians after Mr. Arafat's death, and Mr. Powell is thought to be eager to put his mark on the dealings, Republicans said.

If and when Mr. Powell does step down, Ms. Rice is being mentioned as a possible successor to him as well. If Ms. Rice does move to the State Department, her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, is a leading candidate to become national security adviser.

Mr. Gonzales's impending move to the Justice Department means that he is no longer the front-runner for the first vacancy on the Supreme Court, which may become open because of the illness of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, who has thyroid cancer. There has been no indication by the chief justice's office of when, or whether, he will return to the bench.

Conservatives said on Thursday that a leading candidate for the first nomination to the Supreme Court was Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who sits on the federal appeals court in Richmond. He was a protégé of the late Justice Lewis F. Powell, who was widely admired. Although Judge Wilkinson is opposed to abortion, he may be palatable to some Democrats because of his strong environmental and First Amendment record.

Another leading candidate is Judge J. Michael Luttig, 50, who sits on the same court as Judge Wilkinson. Judge Luttig's relative youth would also make him attractive to Republicans, who tend to prefer younger candidates who will have longer careers and thus more influence.

Other possible nominees include Judge Edith H. Jones, a federal appeals court judge, and Larry D. Thompson, a former deputy attorney general who is now the general counsel of Pepsico in Purchase, N.Y.

Several Republicans said no decision had been made on filling Mr. Gonzales's position as White House counsel, although Brett M. Kavanaugh, a former associate counsel who has since been promoted to staff secretary to the president, is a strong candidate. Two officials said Mr. Kavanaugh had won Mr. Bush's confidence. "The president thinks he's great,'' said one Republican familiar with the White House operations. "He trusts him and really likes having him around to rely on.''

If chosen as White House counsel, Mr. Kavanaugh would not have to undergo a Senate confirmation. Earlier this year, he was nominated for a seat on the federal appeals court based in Washington and was batted around by Democrats in a confirmation hearing. Mr. Kavanaugh was criticized by Democrats for playing a principal role in the White House effort to nominate prominent conservatives to the nation's appeals courts and for his role in the Whitewater investigation of President Bill Clinton.

Other candidates include David Leach, the deputy White House counsel, and Harriet Miers, the deputy chief of staff.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top

[Luis Gonzalez]

So, you would want a Judge who would ignore the letter of the law, and instead render judgments according to his or her ideology.

You want activist Judges who legislate from the bench according to YOUR views.

And the difference between you and that Judge, and leftists would be what exactly?

[TAdams8591]

I said I would prefer an AG that was more obviously pro-life.

I didn't address the other issues.

Regarding a Supreme court justice, I will only support nominees who are wiling to overturn the unconstitutional decision of Roe vs. Wade. I fail to see how overturning an activst, uncontitutional decision, that should never have been made in the first place, is itself activist and unconstitutional. Sorry.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Have you read the Jane Doe 5 opinion and studied it?"

The obvious answer to that is "no".

This isn't about whether Gonzales reached the correct decision based on the facts at hand, and according to the letter of the law. This is about the fact that Gonzales did not exhibit activism favorable to the pro-life movement.

Generally speaking the American people don't understand what Judges are supposed to do, and how they are supposed to behave while rendering judgment; they all believe (left and right alike), that the Judge is there to change the law, or to reach decisions based not on the law, but rather on what the law should say, rather than simply judging on the strict, self-evident wording of the law, and examining the law as it applies to the strict, self-evident letter of the Constitution.

[H.Akston]

With my logic, I can also take an extreme view of what is a person. I could grant "personhood" to a zygote, and my logic would still hold. No person has a right to tap another person's person, and suckle therefrom. We have the 4th Amendment right to not have our person, i.e. body, be seized. If we are pre-born, we also have the right to use whatever organs and state of being we have to try to maintain ourselves. The government can prevent a doctor from aborting us if we have the capability of doing so. If we are so newly-conceived that our lungs are non-existent, it's not any other person's problem - we don't have the right to use another person's lungs without their consent.

My logic leads us to basically the same conclusion as Roe, where "viability" decides rights, only my path prevents late term abortions much more affirmatively. I regret the Supreme Court didn't follow the same logical path, and used the fictitious road called "the right to privacy" to get where I am.

The 4th Amendment doesn't mention privacy, but it does mention seizure. There is no whole-cloth in my rationale.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"I'd say the judges that ruled in her favor are activist judges since the law was written to prevent young girls from having an abortion."

You are wrong yet again, you are projecting your activist sentiments unto the law.

The law was not written to "prevent young girls from having an abortion", had the legislature chosen to write such a law, they would have simply written a law which said "no minor will be able to have an abortion"...they did not.

The law was written so that no physician could give a minor an abortion without notifying the minor's parent or guardian at least 48 hours from performing the procedure. Note that the law does not establish "parental or guardian consent" as a standard, but simply notification.

The law also includes a mechanism where the minor may seek to obtain "judicial bypass" of the consent, it sets two qualifications as a standard for that bypass:

• Maturity, and
• being sufficiently well informed to make the decision

Here's the text of the Texas law:

"The court may grant her request if the minor is able to establish she is mature and sufficiently well informed to make the decision to have the abortion without telling her parent or guardian."

Maturity was not an issue, even in Owen's dissent, and it would be difficult to argue that the legal age of consent in Texas does not set maturity at 17. The decision then was rendered on whether the individual was "sufficiently well informed to make the decision"...she was, thus she met the requirements of the law and was given a judicial bypass.

Owen's standards in all Jane Doe cases under the Texas Parental Act sought to re-write the standards for that judicial bypass to the point where no one would have been able to get one.

That's the essence of Judicial activism.

Now, you keep on insinuating that Owen was right, and Gonzales was wrong...prove your point within the text of the decision itself.

[Luis Gonzalez]

If you want an judge who would oveturn Roe v. Wade, then you want a judge who would rule in strict accordance to the self-evident wording of the law, in this case the Constitution. That's what Alberto Gonzales did in the Jane Doe cases...in spite of the fact that the ruling went against his personal convictions on the issue of abortion.

You would want Alberto Gonzales as a judge.

[PersonalLiberties]

Regarding activist judges what about the U of Michigan case?

[Luis Gonzalez]

Does the Federal government have the power under the Constitution to set admission standards for a State University?

Was Gonzales a judge in that case, or an attorney arguing one side of the issue?

Does the fact that an attorney defends a client accused of murder mean that this attorney approves of murder?

[PersonalLiberties]

Regarding question 1 if it was a private school no biggie; however, that was not the case and thus the due process clause applied.

Regarding 2 and 3 I believe that what you fight for is usually where your convictions lie.

[stuartcr]

Why are you writing things that make it appear that I said it?

That is not very honest...I did not write any of which you are attaching my name to.

[TAdams8591]

I would have to do more reading about Mr. Gonzalez and his past case decisions before I make that determination.

[Luis Gonzalez]

They are listed and discussed on this very thread.