Two and a half years ago, current and past administrators of Daily Kos jointly signed an essay urging the Senate not to confirm the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. The signers were kos, Armando, DHinMI, A Gilas Girl, Steve Gilliard, Steve Soto, Meteor Blades, Theoria, Trapper John, DemFromCT, DavidNYC, Hunter, and kid oakland. Several dozen other bloggers from around wwwLand subsequently signed onto the effort, as you can see here. Among other things, we said:

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing. ... Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales's actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality - views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings - inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried.

The Senate let us down and confirmed Gonzales. But he has not let us down. He has been everything we expected him to be and a good deal more since he stepped into the AG's chair. Everybody can recite the litany even if Gonzales himself can't remember squat.

Given the record of this Administration, its string of lies and its lying about lies, its efforts at cover-ups, its secret dealings, and its politicization of everydamnthing it touches for partisan advantage, Gonzales's performance at the hearings today (and previously) should be no surprise. It was as if a Mafia don had shown up to smirk his way through a Senate hearing on organized crime. Fredo, stonewalling.

There's a remedy for stonewalling. We all know what it is. Somebody at the House Judiciary Committee ought to be drafting the articles of impeachment right this minute.