Typically, considering his disregard for truth, former (finally!) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned on Aug. 27 with a speech seeking to prove how far he's come in life, saying that even his worst days were better than his father's best days. His failed attempt at faux nobility is the final insult after his years of disrespecting this nation's Constitution.
Gonzales' legacy to the nation? Nixonesque wiretaps on citizens and expediting death row executions. To the world? Sanctioning torture. To Latinos? Shame. To late-night comedians? Acerbic punch lines that are right on target but particularly stinging to Latinos who wanted so much to have someone represent us with honor.
Just days ago, a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act was about to authorize Gonzales to be the one deciding which death row cases may be fast-tracked in every state. He already has the blood of 56 men and one woman on death row on his hands. As legal counsel to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Gonzales literally briefed Bush on pleas for clemency: he gave Bush one- or two-page page summaries of each case. Lives were doomed with half-hour chats and one-sided memos on the demerits of each clemency plea.
Even if you, like me, zig-zag on the issue of the death penalty, everyone—almost everyone—knows executions should be taken seriously. But no; the Bush-Gonzales team approached everything from civil rights to due process to death sentences with a cavalier attitude.
There are situations when the goal is to simply get the perp off the face of the Earth. But even then, it should be a task informed by solemnity. In a 1999 campaign trail interview, Bush mocked what a woman on death row would say to him given the chance to personally ask for mercy.
"'Please, please, don't kill me,'" he said, aiming to sound like a despairing woman.
To this heinous theater piece, add Gonzales's role as Pontius Pilate. Back when the two amigos were in Texas, they oversaw 152 executions—the highest number in history—and rejected 56 pleas for clemency.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, a segment of the country has been wearing a burka to Bush's authoritarian/religious rule. Little by little, the suffocating robe has been unraveling as the administration's string of lies about everything from Iraq to Katrina has transformed it into a noose around the GOP's electoral neck.
This is the administration's mantra: Kill for money. Steal entire countries. Waterboard for dollars. Revel in ignorance (as Donald Rumsfeld said,"We don't know what we don't know."). Cheney shoots his friend on a hunting trip even with pre-wounded birds for an easy kill. Sink a nation's promise into cesspools of warmonger clichés.
Gonzales's daring is for all the wrong reasons. Take his staggering 100-plus utterances of "I don't recall" before a Congressional panel investigating a damaged and politicized U.S. Justice Department. In Spanish we have a saying about people like Gonzales: La ignorancia es atrevida. Ignorance is defiant.
In the midst of this criminal stupor, Gonzales called himself a patriot. But his patriotism is runoff from the poisoned stream of Bush's consciousness. Bush expressed regret at Gonzales' departure, calling him a "a man of integrity, decency and principle."
Gonzales can reprise folksy tales of his days as the son of dirt-poor Mexican immigrants as he falls in slo-mo from the grace of his political connections. He can leave defiantly as he slithers into the recesses of a corporate job for which he is as suited as "Brownie" was for Katrina. He can try to recast himself as a victim of political plays. But the fact is, Gonzales comes from the same gang that produced Pinochet, Batista, Somoza, Trujillo and all those other rulers who reigned over rotted banana republics that rewarded the rich and tortured and killed the poor. He is Bush's po' boy, and he is our shame.
Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden is still at large. We never know who's listening in on our insipid or inspired conversations. But, yes, Gonzales has made the world better. By leaving its center of power. ?
Natalia Muñoz is the editor of La Prensa of Western Massachusetts (www.LaPrensaMa.com).
