Here is an extensive list of quotes from Democrats and others about Alberto Gonzalez. It includes this, and much more:

Key Members Of Congress:

Ranking Judiciary Member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT): “I Like And Respect Judge Gonzales And Look Forward To Our Committee’s Consideration Of His Nomination.” (“Verbatim” Roll Call, 11/15/04)

Judiciary Member Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY): “I’m Favorably Inclined [To Support Alberto Gonzales].” (“Washington In Brief,” The Washington Post, 12/2/04)

Judiciary Member Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE): “I Think He’s A Pretty Solid Guy.” (David E. Sanger and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Quickly Picks Chief Counsel As Nominee for Attorney General,” The New York Times, 11/11/04)

Judiciary Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “From My Extensive Contacts Over The Past Four Years With White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, I Think He Will Make An Excellent Attorney General.” (“Verbatim” Roll Call, 11/15/04)

Fmr. Judiciary Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): “His Legal, Military, Government And Professional Experience Has Proven To Be A Great Asset To Our Country During Very Trying Times.” (“Verbatim” Roll Call, 11/15/04)

Judiciary Member Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): “The President Has Chosen Wisely With This Appointment And Certainly One That’s So Important At This Time In Our Nation’s History, And As We Continue To Prosecute The War On Terror.” (“Verbatim” Roll Call, 11/15/04)

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT): “But Counsel Gonzales, Judge Gonzales, Again I Don’t Agree With Him On Everything. We’ve Had Some Back And Forth On Some Stuff, But He’s Very Smart, Very Fair, And Again, He Has The President’s Confidence.” (Fox News’ “Hannity And Colmes,” 11/16/04)

Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA), Vice Chairman, Congressional Hispanic Caucus: “You’ve Got To Compliment That. At Least They Are Making The Outreach Effort At The National Level.” (Hans Nichols, “Hispanic Caucus Blasts DNC,” The Hill, 12/15/04)

Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), House Democrat Caucus Chair: “These Appointments Mean A Lot In The Latino Community … [A] Hispanic Attorney General - That Means Something. … These Aren’t ‘Tokens.’ This Is Real.” (Joe Klein, “The Benetton-Ad Presidency,” Time, 12/27/04)

Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO): “I Told [Gonzales] I Expected To Support Him.” (Mike Soraghan, “Salazar Supports Bush On Migrants,” The Denver Post, 11/19/04)

Sparks fly in Legislature over Reagan tribute:

A resolution honoring the former Republican president’s birthday caused partisan friction in the state Senate Thursday and passed only after it was retooled to mention the fact he never won Minnesota and tax increases that occurred under his watch.
…
It said, among other things, that Reagan “worked in a bipartisan manner to enact his bold agenda of restoring accountability and common sense to government which led to an unprecedented economic expansion and opportunity for millions of Americans.'’

The revised version ends that sentence with “not paralleled until the Clinton presidency,'’ a nod to the two-term Democratic president. Democrats also added lines about tax increases under Reagan and hold up his presidency as “a lesson to the current administration in the areas of bipartisanship, economic recovery, and the need for world support in foreign initiatives.'’

Regime Change Iran has an interesting analysis / deconstruction / tea leaf reading of Bush’s strategy on Iran.

Just doing my part to help to fan the flames of the blaze that Michelle is lighting here.

The Boston Globe ran this story yesterday, coming on the heels of the pay for ink “scandals.”

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.

Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is “committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers.” It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as “bringing the conservative message to America.”

As noted before: the blood is in the water.

Well, as long as you’re not Eason Jordan.

UPDATE: I have no way of judging the credibility of this report (via Henry Hanks). But a few places suggest his real name is Dave Rayboen.

UPDATE 2: Fishbowl DC weighs in with some “real reporting” here (via Wonkette).

Hugh Hewitt asks a great question about the Russert MTP interview with Kerry we blogged about last week:

THE SECOND SUBJECT for mulling is John Kerry’s extraordinary interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. There’s a lot to absorb here, including Kerry’s assertion that he did indeed run guns and CIA men into Cambodia on secret missions–and to aid the Khmer Rouge no less!

What is really remarkable is not Kerry’s whoppers–he couldn’t have meant the Khmer Rouge, right?–or his almost certain not-to-be-fulfilled pledge to sign the form 180. It is the set of questions Tim Russert posed.

Russert is generally regarded as the toughest interview in television, and he did bleed Kerry a bit during the campaign; afterwards Kerry never again came close to Russert’s set before November 2.

But if the questions posed by Russert on January 30, 2005–on Kerry’s fantasy life in Cambodia, on the sequestered records, etc.–were legitimate and useful inquiries after the votes have been cast, why then did no one pose them to candidate Kerry when they might have made a difference in the election? The blogosphere and the center-right media were full of such demands from August 1 forward, but not a single reporter from mainstream media bothered to pose even one of the Russert questions prior to the vote.

LGF links to a post from November 2004 which quotes yet another CNN executive, Chris Cramer, as follows:

Chris Cramer of the US network CNN is honorary president of the International News Safety Institute (Insi).

He told hundreds of TV executives and journalists at News Xchange: “The death toll is three times higher than that of international humanitarian workers… This has been arguably the most terrible year for our profession - after I sat here and told you last year it had been the most terrible year.”

By some counts, more than 1,200 journalists and media workers have been killed in the past 10 years, more than two thirds dying in their own countries.

“Most were deliberately targeted for seeking out the truth. And in more than 94% of those cases, no one has been brought to trial,” Chris Cramer recalled.

It seems to me that the LGF post is implying by way of association, that Cramer is accusing the military of targeting journalists, but I interpret his statements, from the limited context, not quite that specific. He says journalists are being targeted, but it doesn’t seem to be quite the same as Jordan’s in terms of who is doing the targeting.

See what you think.

And, it turns out that this is not a first for Eason Jordan. Check out this quote from November, 2004:

“Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces,” Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.

By way of Captain’s Quarters’ rebuttal to Eason Jordan, which is where I came across this November quote.

‘You’ve done your job, Mom. Now it is my turn to protect you.’

The 25-year-old marine, Byron Norwood, was killed in action on Nov. 12, 2004 in Fallujah.

Thank you Byron.

And we have said farewell to some very good men and women, who died for our freedom and whose memory this nation will honor forever. One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mom, Janet, sent me a letter and told me how much Byron loved being a Marine and how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. She wrote, “When Byron was home the last time, I said that I wanted to protect him, like I had since he was born. He just hugged me and said, ‘You’ve done your job, Mom. Now it is my turn to protect you.’”

Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom’s defenders and our military families, represented here this evening by Sergeant Norwood’s mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood.

UPDATE: Looks like Powerline had the same idea.

From KGMB we read:

And the Cuban president says what he saw was “the face of a deranged person.”

His comments were aired on live Cuban television as Castro spoke to thousands of teachers attending an international conference in Havana.

The comments were Castro’s first in public since the United States dubbed Cuba an “outpost of tyranny.”

Via Backcountry Conservative.

And from Babula Blog, which dubs itself “an Island on the net without a bearded dictator” comes this fun title: Hello Pot, I’m Kettle, in reference to the Castro quote.

Did you know Castro is also a comedian?

He drew laughs when he added, “If only it were just the face.”

Every good dictator needs a speechwriter with a sense of humor I guess.

Friends of Saddam looks into the potential conflict of interest of Paul Volker, the author of the report.

When Volcker was appointed to head the Oil-for-Food investigation in April 2004, it was not widely known to the general public, the world’s media, or the U.S. Congress that he was at the time a director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and the Business Council for the United Nations. Mr. Volcker is listed as a director in the 2003-2004 UNA-USA annual report,[3] as well as the annual reports for 2001-2002 and 2000-2001.[4]The UNA-USA’s partner organization, the Business Council for the United Nations (BCUN), works to “advance the common interests of the U.N. and business in a more prosperous and peaceful world.” One of its chief underwriters was BNP Paribas, the French bank that held the escrow account for Oil-for-Food funds.[9] BNP donated more than $100,000 to UNA-USA and BCUN in 2002 to 2003.[10] BNP’s role in the Oil-for-Food scandal is currently being investigated by the House International Relations Committee,[11] as well as by the Volcker Committee.

All the footnotes in the above quote have references in his original post… go check it out.

And the Toronto Free Press questions his objectivity from another angle:

On the payroll as an attorney with Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee is Miranda Duncan. Duncan, who worked for UNICEF, is David Rockefeller’s granddaughter. It was Rockefeller money that built the UN’s Manhattan headquarters.

and more…

Potential conflict of interest number one for Volcker is the fact he held a seat on Power Corporation’s international advisory board.

Wealthy Canadian businessman and Power Corporation founder, Paul Desmarais Sr. is a major shareholder and director in TotalFinaElf, the largest oil corporation in France, which has held tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein

Wow, what a tangled web. Here’s a bit more:

Gardiner also raises questions about former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s handpicked choice to lead the inquiry. Volcker has served on the boards of two U.N. advocacy groups: the United Nations Association of the United States and the Business Council for the United Nations. An additional sign that his loyalties may lie more with the U.N. bureaucracy than with accountability was his choice for the IIC’s communications director, Anna Di Lellio, who resigned last September after it was revealed she had given a newspaper interview comparing President Bush to Osama bin Laden.

Here’s a brief primer of the oil for food scandal situation:

To start, the UN’s program director, Benon Sevan, has been accused of receiving the rights to purchase millions of barrels of oil at “favorable conditions” - which means below market value by roughly 35 cents a barrel. (As part of the oil for food program, Saddam’s regime was given a set number of oil contracts that could be sold to international traders below market value).

He then allegedly passed those rights on to a company based in Switzerland (or Panama, depending on your news source) called Africa Middle East Petroleum. Who controls this company? Fakhri Abdelnour, a nephew of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

From FT.com we read:

The Somo [which was Iraq’s oil marketing organizatin] documents show that, unusually, AMEP [Africa Middle East Petroleum, referenced above] was added to recipients in the middle of Phase Four (May-November 1998) after a visit to Baghdad by Mr Sevan. One letter, dated August 10 1998, was from Saddam Zayn Hassan, Somo’s executive manager, to Iraq’s oil minister. Translated from Arabic, it mentions AMEP as “the company that Mr Sevan cited to you during his last trip to Baghdad”.

No evidence of any financial relationship between AMEP and Mr Sevan has been established but investigators want to know what this letter means.

And here’s more:

Parallel inquiries by investigators working for the US Congress are scrutinising statements by Mr Sevan that he received tens of thousands of dollars in cash annually from an aunt in Cyprus.

Inquiries by the FT and Il Sole suggest Mr Sevan’s only close relative in Cyprus was Berjouhi Zeytountsian, an aunt who raised him after his parents’ death.

Ms Zeytountsian died in June. On March 23, she fell into an elevator shaft. Police, who declared her death an accident, never had a chance to interview her.

And we see more from the Google translated version of 24 Ore.com.

Abdelnour is not sure a personage above suspicion: in years 80 it has been one of the greater suppliers of oil to the Sudafrica in violation of the international embargo against the apartheid. The investigators of the UN have uncovered that every qualvolta that Abdelnour oed in visit in the offices of the ministry of the Oil to Baghdad introduced making the name of Sevan. Abdelnour has denied to have received oil allocation through Sevan and, in more occasions, it has declared to have only once seen Sevan in its life, in the lobby of the hotel Intercontinental di Vienna after one reunion of the Opec. In an encounter of all the accidental one to which several persons were present, included Youssef Ibrahim, a former journalist Egyptian its friend of infancy. But, from we caught up by telephone to Dubai, Ibrahim she has contraddetto Abdelnour, saying that after that accidental encounter to the Intercontinental, Sevan and Abdelnour three have gone with he to the restaurant of the Bristol hotel “for one pleasant supper we together”.

Summary:
So Sevan goes to Baghdad, right after that, AMEP, run by Abdelnour, nephew of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and apparent acquaintence of Sevan, gets contracts, SOMO references Sevan as the source that wanted the contracts to go to AMEP, and Sevan claims he was getting “tens of thousands” of dollars annualy from an aunt who mysteriously fell into an elevator shaft four days after the beginning of the investigation and never recovered from the coma.

Also, as I posted previously, keep an eye on the Friends of Saddam site, as it has some good information.

The U.N. Oil for Food report is due out this morning. Benon Sevan is the guy that ran the oil for food program for six years.

Eamon Fitzgerald has some background from back in April of 2004:

And who is Benon Sevan? He’s the Cyprus-born U.N. Undersecretary General who ran the organization’s United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for six years. According to documents found earlier this year in the files of the former Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad, he was also involved in a scheme in which some 270 foreign officials (mostly French and Russian) received the right to trade in Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices. There’s an entry in one document that reads: “Quantity of Oil Allocated and Given to Mr. Benon Sevan” which lists a total of 7.3 million barrels of oil as the “quantity executed” — an amount that, if true, would have generated an illegal profit of as much as $3.5 million. When the scandal broke earlier this year, Sevan took a long vacation in Australia, at a luxury casino resort. He has since disappeared. With the heat growing, Sevan, who makes $186,000 a year, submitted his retirement recently, effective 21 May.

(Via Michelle Malkin)

The Wall Street Journal reports today:

The evidence is conclusive that Mr. Sevan, in effectively participating in the selection of purchasers of oil under the Program, placed himself in an irreconcilable conflict of interest, in violation both of specific United Nations rules and of the broad responsibility of an international civil servant to adhere to the highest standards of trust and integrity.

WaPo says:

While the report, more than 100 pages long, contains no proof that Sevan engaged in criminal acts, it cites evidence suggesting that Sevan received illicit payoffs from Saddam Hussein’s government, the officials said.

Back in October, when Charles Duelfer’s report came out, we learned that Saddam’s government skimmed a couple of billion in kickbacks and surcharges, and in that report, Sevan allegedly received allocations to buy millions of barrels of oil on “favorable terms.”

More background here from Roger L. Simon.

Also, keep an eye on the Friends of Saddam site, as it has some good information.