Ashcroft resigns

[GonzoStyle]

WASHINGTON - With a hug and words of high praise, President Bush (news - web sites) named Alberto Gonzales as attorney general on Wednesday, elevating the administration's most prominent Hispanic to a highly visible post in the war on terror.

"His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies in the war on terror," Bush said of the man who has served as the White House's top lawyer over the past four years.

In an announcement in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Bush touched on Gonzales' personal story — a boy who grew up poor in a family of eight children in a two-bedroom house in Texas — and now is in line for a Cabinet post.

"'Just give me a chance to prove myself,' that is a common prayer for those in my community," said Gonzales, who would be the first Hispanic to hold the nation's top law enforcement job. "Mr. President, thank you for that chance."

If confirmed by the Senate, the 49-year-old Texan would replace John Ashcroft (news - web sites), who announced plans on Tuesday to step down after four stormy years in the post.

Even before the formal announcement, one Senate liberal welcomed the appointment of "someone less polarizing" to the position. "We will have to review his record very carefully, but I can tell you already he's a better candidate than John Ashcroft," said Sen. Charles Schumer

Commerce Secretary Donald Evans also announced his resignation on Tuesday, and Republican officials have said they expect other departures from Bush's Cabinet and senior staff as he prepares for a second term in office.

Gonzales' career has been linked with Bush for at least a decade, serving as general counsel when Bush was governor of Texas, and then as secretary of state and as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

"My confidence in Al was high to begin with. It has only grown with time," the president said, hugging his longtime Texas confidant as he concluded his remarks.

Gonzales has been at the center of developing Bush's positions on balancing civil liberties with waging the war on terrorism — opening the White House counsel to the same line of criticism that has dogged Ashcroft.

For instance, Gonzales publicly defended the administration's policy — essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now being fought out in the lower courts — of detaining certain terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to lawyers or courts.

He also wrote a controversial February 2002 memo in which Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position drew fire from human rights groups, which said it helped led to the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) said it expected the Senate to closely examine those issues during confirmation hearings. The ACLU said it had no position on Gonzales, but added: "Particular attention should be devoted to exploring Mr. Gonzales' proposed policies on the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, the Guantanamo Bay detentions, the designation of United States citizens as enemy combatants and reproductive rights."

Some conservatives also have quietly questioned Gonzales' credentials on core social issues. And he once was a partner in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden energy giant Enron.

Borders? what borders?