White House counsel Alberto Gonzales has graduated from future Supreme Court candidate to intended successor to outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Reports from Washington early November 10 indicated Gonzales – who held a similar position during Bush's administration as Texas governor – would be the pick to replace Ashcroft, whose resignation was confirmed a day before. President Bush made the pick official at about 3 p.m. Eastern time at a press conference.
Whether he will be more or less an opponent to the Adult entertainment industry than Ashcroft – who Bush praised for “[stepping up] efforts to prosecute the cruel exploitation of children by Internet pornographers" – remains to be seen. Some early reports indicated conservative ranks were uncomfortable with a perception that Gonzales lacks "credentials on the social issues."
That could suggest Gonzales might not be the threat Ashcroft was perceived to be against Adult entertainment and materials. But if Chicago-based First Amendment attorney J.D. Obenberger is any indication, Gonzales having a more quiet style could telegraph a somewhat more dangerous presence, as far as Adult entertainment is concerned.
"Ashcroft turned out to be a lot of bark and very little bite," Obenberger told AVNOnline.com, when he learned of the likely Gonzales nomination. "I think the reason for that is, his excesses of personal religious conviction while on the job were counterproductive, and caused even the DOJ personnel to not take him seriously on some issues, including his directives for the prosecution of Adult [material]."
Bush introduced Gonzales by praising his "sharp intellect and sound judgment" in helping shape the administration's war on terror policies. But Gonzales in that regard already has a kind of rap sheet: he defended the administration's policy of detaining some terrorism suspects for prolonged periods without access to attorneys or court records.
That policy was dumped by the U.S. Supreme Court and is now being battled in the lower courts. But Gonzales also wrote a 2002 memo in which President Bush claimed a right to waive anti-torture law and international treaties that protect prisoners of war, which human rights groups and others have charged allowed an atmosphere that made room for abuses such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
His name actually cropped up as a Supreme Court candidate first, after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist revealed he is battling thyroid cancer. Gonzales was then one of several possibilities to succeed Ashcroft, along with former federal prosecutor and New York mayor Rudolph Guiliani, former Montana governor Mark Racicot, former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson, and U.N. Ambassador and former U.S. Senator John Danforth.
Obenberger said a less flamboyant and more "rational" appearing attorney general than Ashcroft could easily enough convince career Justice Department prosecutors to bring obscenity prosecutions. "When you couple this with exit poll data suggesting 22 percent of American voters made their decisions on moral values – a statistic that's not likely to be lost on this administration – the specter of obsessive obscenity criminal prosecution increases. And this is why I've raised my personal freedom of speech alert level to orange."
He said 22 percent may be a minority of voters but not when that's perceived, as some do, to have been a difference in pushing Bush past Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) in this month's elections.
Obenberger also said the Adult industry should really keep a close eye on Bruce Taylor, a founding member of the National Obscenity Enforcement Unit in the department, who returned to Justice early this year, as a senior counsel within the department's criminal division and with a reported focus on federal obscenity issues.
"Watch closely," Obenberger said. "The savvy political observer will watch closely to what happens to Bruce Taylor and whether there are changed of personnel [with] the chief of the criminal division and the chief of the computer and white collar crime division, in order to shed light on the probable direction of this administration on Internet obscenity prosecution."
Gonzales, who grew up in a family of eight children and is known for working over the years on behalf of Hispanic-American interests in and out of government, would be the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history. "'Just give me a chance to prove myself,' that is a common prayer for those in my community," he said after Bush presented him. "Mr. President, thank you for that chance."
Another First Amendment attorney, Lawrence G. Walters, told AVNOnline.com Gonzales indeed seems a mixed bag – but not an obvious threat to Adult entertainment.
"His issues seem to be the war, terrorism, and international issues," Walters said. "And, frankly, that's great. Keep him there. He can be active on those issues all he wants. I don't really see him as an obvious threat against the Adult industry, though time will tell about what's going to happen. But this is not somebody who has an obvious axe to grind against our industry. On balance, this might be one of the better ones we could have hoped for."
Free Speech Coalition board chairman and criminal defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas isn't entirely sure about that. But he also said the Adult industry is better off with an open extremist than someone carrying even some moderate credentials.
"[Gonzales] is an ideological extremist of a different sort than Ashcroft," Douglas said. "But the record that already exists on him, in terms of the hostility toward civil rights and individual rights, is great. In a way, it doesn't matter who is the attorney general, in terms of an anticipated assault on the Adult industry, because Congress has already mandated that [assault] by funding 30 additional slots in the child exploitation section, and mandating 2257 after so many years of it not being enforced."
For more on the Gonzales nomination, click here.
