MoveOn asks for calls against Gonzales

MoveOn is asking people to call their Senators to vote no on Gonzales. Hey why not? The calls and e-mails did seem to push the Dems to the 10-8 vote on the Judiciary Committee.

Dear MoveOn member,
This week, the full Senate will vote on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. Far from the rubber stamp Bush expected, the outcry from groups like Amnesty International, Win Without War, FaithfulAmerica, TrueMajority, People for the American Way and tens of thousands of MoveOn members has created a powerful opposition -- making this vote a real opportunity to hold the Administration accountable for the torture scandal in Iraq.
Last week, we scored a huge victory when every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee bravely voted to oppose Gonzales. This week, we need every Senator of conscience to do the same.
Please call your Senators today and ask them to vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. Senator Arlen Specter: 202-224-4254 Senator Rick Santorum: 202-224-6324
In January, 150,000 MoveOn members and a broad coalition of faith groups, human rights advocates, and national security experts called on Gonzales to clearly repudiate his position that torture is a legally acceptable practice for the
United States. He refused.
During his confirmation hearing, Gonzales insisted that the President had the authority to order torture.[1] He defended the memos he wrote and approved while serving as White House counsel authorizing the use of torture to interrogate prisoners and declaring the Geneva Conventions "quaint".[2] Gonzales' appalling legal equivocations are in direct violation of international laws ratified by Congress, including the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention
Against Torture.[3]
As chief White House counsel, Gonzales' disregard for the law shamed our nation
and outraged the world at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. As a judge on the Texas Supreme Court, he took tens of thousands of dollars from Enron and handed down historic decisions in the company's favor.[4] As chief legal counsel to the State
of Texas, he pushed for then-Governor Bush to sign the most death warrants of any governor in history, even executing the mentally retarded and foreign nationals
who were not accorded their rights under international law.[5]
Simply put, the record and positions of Alberto Gonzales have already cost our nation dearly and render him unfit for the office of Attorney General. Please call your Senator today and urge them to oppose his nomination and show the world what America stands for.
Let us know you called by following the link below:
http://www.moveon.org/callmade17.html?id=5065-5262787-qprY7uJVPnJ_UdfuJRKTLg
Thanks for all that you do.
--Ben Brandzel, Eli Pariser, and the whole MoveOn.org Team Monday,
January 31st, 2005

(1) When asked by Senator Durbin whether the President could bypass the law to authorize torture, he replied "I guess I would have to say that hypothetically
that authority may exist."http://www.moveon.org/r?r=635
(2) When asked by Senator Leahy if he still supported the memo written at his request authorizing extreme measures such as "waterboarding" and unlimited psychological humiliation such as occurred at Abu Ghraib, Gonzales responded "I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the Department."
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200501/012605.html
(3) The Convention on Torture clearly states: "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture". While one of Gonzales' memos read "Gonzales' legal memo advised the president he had the authority "to approve almost any physical or psychological action during interrogation, up to and including torture."
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm
(4) New York Daily News, February 2, 2002
(5) Center for American Progresshttp://www.moveon.org/r?r=636