After his disgraceful tenure as U.S. Attorney General and his humiliating resignation, I did not expect to hear from Alberto Gonzales for at least the number of years John McCain says we will be in Iraq.
But, lo-and-behold, on July 2, Alberto Gonzales published an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. That alone is surprising. But what is even more remarkable is the subject of his piece.
In “What Latinos want from their president,” the disgraced former Attorney General, a Latino, has the audacity to purport to speak for the Latino community in the U.S. and to offer advice to the presidential candidates on how to court, attract and capture the Latino vote.
In his piece, Gonzales says
Pew’s numbers now show that Latino voters are heading back into the Democratic fold, but the message in these voting patterns and in the demographic projections is that neither party can afford to take the Latino vote for granted.
What a condescending piece of advice from a person who took the American people, the Constitution, the law, etc., for granted, and worse.
When discussing the issues that “resonate” with Latinos, Gonzales says:
Among them, of course, is immigration. Latino support will swing to the political party that has the courage and fortitude to put forward a specific immigration solution that is effective and efficient in securing our borders, that supports the economic interests of the nation and that is compassionate in a way that is consistent with the character of a nation of immigrants.
What did you do, Mr. Gonzales, to put forward or champion a “specific immigration solution” during your tenure?
And
…although we know that America strives to be a fair country, the harsh reality is we are not one nation with liberty and justice for all. And yet equal opportunity — to a job, to capital and to credit — is a cornerstone of American success. The promise of equal opportunity is what drew our parents and grandparents and what still draws immigrants to the U.S., and it is what firmly knits them into the country once they are citizens.
“The harsh reality is we are not one nation with liberty and justice for all.”? As the people’s lawyer, this is one area you could have really helped improve, Mr. Gonzales. Instead we got illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens and other horrors.
“…equal opportunity — to a job”? How about the eight fired U.S. attorneys, including one of your own, David Iglesias.
Now, some may call this “reverse stereotyping,” but it is Mr. Gonzales himself who puts his Latino heritage at play when he says, “We must also consider the divide between the majority from another group, one that I happen to belong to: Latinos.” By the way, I am a Latino, too.
A letter to the editor writer in today’s LA Times, Julio Zamarripa, perhaps says it best:
I was certainly hoping never to hear from Gonzales again; however, since he decided to appoint himself as some kind of a spokesman for the Latino community, I feel the former attorney general needs help on his convenient lack of recollection about some important issues that were intrinsic to his duties as the highest law enforcement official in the land.
He writes that Latinos share the common prayer, “Just give me a chance to succeed.” Does he not remember that his actions and reckless disregard for the law denied countless people the “chance to succeed”?
During his watch, the scandal of the political firing of 11 U.S. attorneys reached all the way to Congress, where Gonzales demonstrated contempt for the very laws he had taken an oath to uphold. He became an embarrassment to the entire nation. His lack of integrity hardly gives him moral authority to speak on behalf of any racial, political or religious group.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.