Friday, February 04, 2005

You can't spell "Gonzales" without "A.G." (updated)

Thanks to a 60-36 vote in the Senate, Alberto Gonzales is the new attorney general. From the Times:

But after three days of rancorous debate over the Gonzales nomination, Democrats characterized the vote as a strong statement of opposition to the policies on the detention and treatment of prisoners in the administration's campaign on terrorism. With all but 6 of 41 Democrats present on Thursday opposing Mr. Gonzales, he received fewer Democratic votes than John Ashcroft did in his 2001 confirmation as attorney general. Eight Democrats supported Mr. Ashcroft in that 58 to 42 vote, the closest confirmation vote for an attorney general since 1925.

Let that sink in: only slightly more senators think Gonzales will do a good job than thought Ashcroft - John Ashcroft, whom everyone knew was an evangelical nutjob/barbershop quartet member! - would. (Since you're dying to know, that A.G. in 1925 was John Sargent, who took over during Coolidge's Teapot Dome scandal and was responsible for enforcing Prohibition.) Here is the full breakdown of those who voted yea and nay, including the 36 who voted against Gonzo.

Update
There were 12 states whose two senators both voted against Gonzales: California (Feinstein & Boxer), Delaware (Biden & Carper), Illinois (Durbin & Obama), Maryland (Mikulski & Sarbanes), Massachusetts (Kennedy & Kerry), Michigan (Levin & Stabenow), New Jersey (Corzine & Lautenberg), New York (Clinton & Schumer), Vermont (Jeffords & Leahy), Washington (Cantwell & Murray), Wisconsin (Feingold & Kohl), and - bizarrely, given its national reputation as the capital of hickdom - West Virginia (Byrd & Rockefeller).