The new attorney general - a torture's promoter?

Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's nominee to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, told the Senate Judiciary Committee today during the confirmation hearing that he never would approve torture tactics for prisoners. Gonzales defended himself against allegations that he had helped craft administration policies that contributed to abuses of military prisoners in Cuba and Iraq. Bob Herbert of the New York Times thinks that's all just wishi-washi:

Mr. Gonzales shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that office. His judgments regarding the detention and treatment of prisoners rounded up in Iraq and the so-called war on terror have been both unsound and shameful. Some of the practices that evolved from his judgments were appalling, gruesome, medieval. But this is the Bush administration, where incompetence and outright failure are rewarded with the nation's highest honors.(...) There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence. In the Bush administration, that mixture has been explosive. Forget the meant-to-be-comforting rhetoric surrounding Mr. Gonzales's confirmation hearings. Nothing's changed. As detailed in The Washington Post earlier this month, the administration is making secret plans for the possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists who will never even be charged.