the road to surfdom: Approach the Bench

Judd Legum from the excellent Center for American Progress emails with this interesting comparison between Gonzalez's memo and an op-ed he (Gonzalez) recently wrote for The New York Times:

Last week, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales forcefully denied that the Bush administration failed to support the Geneva treaties. But Gonzales’ recent statements are belied by his January 2002 memo to the President.

GONZALES SAYS ADMINISTRATION IS A 'STRONG SUPPORTER OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS: "At the same time, President Bush recognized that our nation will continue to be a strong supporter of the Geneva treaties. The president also reaffirmed our policy in the United States armed forces to treat Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in keeping with the principles of the Third Geneva Convention."
- Alberto Gonzales, 5/15/04 (NYT Op-Ed)

VERSUS

GONZALES SAYS GENEVA RESTRICTIONS ARE OBSOLETE: "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians...In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
- Alberto Gonzales, 1/25/02 (Memorandum to the President, as reported in Newsweek 5/16/04)

via Brad Delong.

As a Kos commenter pointed out, this episode will certainly probably hopefully hurt Gonzales' chances to be nominated for the Supreme Court.