GONZALES QUITS! BUT WHY?

Finally we have gotten rid of Alberto Gonzales, the Bush enabler as to questions of allowing torture, depriving Guantanamo inmates of legal rights, and firing US attorneys for goals of obtaining political advantage in elections.

However, I thought Gonzales vowed not to quit. What has come down the pike, or is coming, to change his promise to stick it out?

GEORGE BUSH: VOLUNTEER TO UNDERGO "ENHANCED" INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES

I want to call attention of all bloggers and their readers to this important opinion article today in The Washington Post by P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner on "War Crimes and the White House." Kelley is a former Marine Corps. commandant and Turner is a lawyer formerly with the Reagan White House. Both of them strenuously object to the Bush Executive Order specifying what the CIA can do in interrogating prisoners suspected of being terrorists. They rightly point out that Bush allows all enhanced and harsh techniques provided that they are not done for the purpose of humiliation. So if the CIA wants to "water board" a suspect, that would be allowed provided its purpose is interrogation or securing information, other than "humiliating" the prisoner.

Write Turner and Kelley:

"In other words, as long as the intent of the abuse is to gather intelligence or to prevent future attacks, and the abuse is not "done for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual" -- even if that is an inevitable consequence -- the president has given the CIA carte blanche to engage in "willful and outrageous acts of personal abuse.""

Marty Lederman at Balkinization finds Bush's Executive Order to be "transparently implausible" when administration officials can say with a straight face that the U.S. would be complying with the Geneva Convention's prohibition of torture or violent acts directed at one's life or person.

Senator Durbin posed questions on Bush's interpretation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention to Alberto Gonzales the other day. Would it be allowed for some government other than the United States, for purposes of securing information, to subject American suspects to "painful stress positions, threatening detainees with dogs, forced nudity, water boarding and mock execution?" Gonzales refused to answer the question, claiming his answer would give insight into clandestine CIA activities.

Of course the reason why Gonzales did not answer the question is that he cannot believe the president has enough executive authority and power to violate Common Article 3. But that is exactly what Bush is authorizing.

I have a question to Bush and Gonzales along the lines of Senator Durbin. If you think that water boarding or forced stress positions or deprivation of sleep or mock execution or threatening detainees with dogs is perfectly legal and in compliance with Common Article 3, would you be willing to be a test subject? In medical schools, students are often asked to volunteer to invasive procedures so that they will have a better conception of what the patient must endure. So too here, before Bush allows any of these procedures to be used on "suspects," he should himself undergo them, with nothing held back out of respect for his office. Then let's see if he believes these harsh methods comply with the Geneva Convention.

COMEY TESTIFIES BUSH CONTINUED ILLEGAL SPYING PROGRAM FOR UP TO THREE WEEKS

Former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Thanks to Dan Froomkin in his White House Watch today for providing links to the testimony and to a video.

Comey describes an improbable scene at the intensive care sickbed of John Ashcroft after the president called Ashcroft's room to say that he was sending over Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and Andy Card, Chief-of-Staff to get Ashcroft's signature on extending the secret domestic spying and wiretap program. Comey rushed to the hospital because Ashcroft had handed over his AG powers to him, and they had both previously agreed that the domestic spying program was illegal. Comey knew that the White House was trying to take advantage of the disorientation of the sick Ashcroft in having him sign off on the legality of a program which the DOJ considered problematic.

Even though Card and Gonzales were pretty annoyed at Comey for refusing to sign off, after Ashcroft rose up from his bed to tell them that Comey was then the acting AG, Comey testified that the White House still went ahead and implemented the program for up to three weeks, during which time the authorization lacked the DOJ's and the AG's authorization.

So now we have it. Bush and Cheney continue a spying program which their own Department of Justice considers illegal.

This raises important and troubling questions. How many other illegal programs does the White House implement? What are these programs? How long are they been in existence?

It is necessary to stand back and put the testimony of Comey in perspective. If Bush and Cheney & Co. would continue an illegal spying program for up to three weeks without DOJ's sign-off, then we can better understand the mentality of the president and vice president in establishing and operating prisons like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and those other secret sites. Then we can evaluate the claims of torture and extraordinary rendition. Then when Gonzales comes out and tries to take away lawyers from those inmates, we can better appreciate the destruction of basic constitutional rights engineered by Bush/Cheney aided and abetted by many of their Republican followers in Congress and even by some Democrats.