Senate Democrats plan to roll over for Gonzales

It appears that, for whatever political reasons, there will be no serious opposition to the appointment of Alberto Gonzales (lover and defender of torture, indefinite imprisonment of US Citizens, indiscriminate and unreflective use of capital punishment, and secret government) to the position of Attorney General. While everyone seems to agree that anyone (even, as Pat Leahy says, Attila the Hun) would be better than John Ashcroft, it is hard to understand how Gonzales is really substantially better. If anything, the fact that his fingerprints are all over so many of the most troubling aspects of the Bush Administration makes him far more frightening than the almost cartoonishly self-righteous Ashcroft.

The Nat Hentoff article is a good one, and this quote(from late Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas) is particularly apt:

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air—however slight—lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."