No torture? How comforting: * We're in the hands of a party that obviously cares about values

The Associated Press headline that came over the wire on Wednesday said it all: "Gonzales Will Follow Non-Torture Policies." You know how bad the situation is when the president's choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore. Alberto Gonzales may have been willing to legally justify something that was abhorrent to everything America stands for, but it's all relative. Given that Gonzales is replacing the odious John Ashcroft, Democrats didn't seem inclined to try to derail the Hispanic nominee, even though his memo fostered the atmosphere that led to disgusting scandals in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Just to get things started on the right foot, though, Gonzales planned to go the extra mile and offer the quaint, obsolete Senate Democrats a more nuanced explanation of why he called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete." Before he helped President Bush circumvent the accords and reserve the right to do so "in this or future conflicts," you had to tune in to an old movie with Nazi generals or Viet Cong guards if you wanted to see someone sneeringly shrug off the international treaty protecting prisoners from abuse. ("You worthless running dog Chuck Norris! What do we care about your silly Geneva Conventions?") How are you to believe Gonzales when he says he's through with torture? His mission is clearly to do whatever he thinks Bush wants. All gall is divided into parts, so what's next? The Commerce Department nominee promising that giveaways to big business will be done with subtlety? The Environmental Protection Agency nominee promising that the toxin content in water will never rise to Yushchenko level? It's comforting to start the new year in the hands of a party that cares so much about morals and values. [more]

• "Gonzales vows no-torture policy" [more] and [more]
• Pictured above: A protestor wearing a 'No to Torture' shirt stands in the back of the U.S. Senate hearing room as United States Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales testifies at the start of his U.S. Senate confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 6, 2005 [more]