Is Alberto Gonzales Stupid? : A more respectful view...

Alex Gibney: From The Huffington Post:

Gonzales is the consummate bureaucrat. With the moral direction of a cockroach, he skitters around in the footnotes of the law, avoiding fundamental principles, in an effort to survive. Let's remember: this is the man who told Arlen Specter that there was no affirmative right to habeas corpus in the Constitution, only a prohibition against its suspension. Let's admit: that's technically correct and meaningless. His brilliance comes in his extraordinary ability to remain determined, unflappable, and dilatory in the face of withering criticism. There's no smoking gun with Alberto; in fact, by intention, there's no there there. And that's how he eludes being stampeded out of the government.

This is the lawyer, formerly employed by Enron, who hid Bush's DUI conviction and prepared 57 death-penalty memoranda - all urging death and many ignoring clear evidence for clemency - for Bush's virtual assembly line of executions... This is the man who, as counsel to the President, advised his client how to commit a crime against humanity: torture. Yet, even knowing that, he managed to keep his head down in the midst of evasions and obfuscations long enough to be confirmed the leading law enforcement official of the United States. Once installed, he appears to have been far less interested in serving the Constitution - his real job - than his political bosses. In doing so, he has corrupted the rule of law and, through his belief in executive power, traded the principles of the Magna Carta for Machiavelli's The Prince, a handbook for maintaining power and justifying evil actions if they serve a just purpose.