When Bill Clinton was the United States president, a suit was filed against the producers of American tobacco products. It was alleged that nicotine is addictive and leads to emphysema and lung cancer among other disabilities. That much is a given.
When Bush took the presidency courtesy of Scalia and the Supreme Court, his Attorney General was John Ashcroft, a retrogressive, born again Missourian. Ashcroft attempted to kill the suit, but the action had too much legal and public momentum for that to happen. Ashcroft made it clear that his heart was not in the suit against some of the major contributors to Republican campaigns. On the other hand, the attorneys actually trying the suit on behalf of the U. S. Government were enthusiastic in their assessment that they had a winner.
Bush’s second term started by his telling Ashcroft that his services were no longer needed. Effectively, he was fired. Bush gave the A.G. job to Alberto Gonzales, his personal legal advisor. Gonzales was promoted after he had given Bush a written opinion that prisoners of the Iraqi and Afghanistan campaigns were not protected by the Geneva Convention. He said that provisions of the Convention were “quaint” and “obsolete.” This opened the door to the torture that has come to light at places like Guantanamo, Bagram in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. The courts have uniformly rejected Gonzales’s advice to Bush. So our fearless leader promoted Gonzales to Attorney General of the United States.
As the case against the tobacco companies was approaching its end, expert witnesses for the government determined that the damage caused by the defendants came to $130 billion to be paid out over several years. $130 billion was the working figure for all participants, including the judge. It was the figure proposed by the Department of Justice of this administration.
Suddenly, in the first week of June of this year as the lawyers were preparing their closing arguments, Gonzales ordered his lawyers to say that the damage came only to $10 billion, not $130 billion. The $10 billion was to be paid out over five years.
The judge was flabbergasted. In the most polite terms, she inquired about whether there were any “outside influences” which would call for the reduction in the proposed penalty from $130 billion to $10 billion. The lawyers for the government who had been bullied by Gonzales and the White House, had no understandable answer to the judge’s question. After years of work on the suit, they had been shot in he back.
This is a case of the most egregious meddling by Gonzales and Bush in our court system. It was done solely to protect contributors to the Republican coffers. This is the way things are done in a Fascist state – which we are threatening to become.
Gonzales is high on Bush’s list for appointment to the Supreme Court. So now we have a candidate who stands alone in his analysis of the Geneva Convention which he called “quaint” and “obsolete.” He has had one promotion and now he seeks another. His action in the tobacco case is one of a gutless sycophant, which is why we say, “How to go, Alberto!”
E. E. CARR
June 13, 2005
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We have a plethora of gutless sycophants lately, it seems. Paul Ryan, in particular, comes strongly to mind right now.  Something about the GOP must attract the type.