Gonzales will be the first hispanic Attorney General

So what?! At the confirmation hearings yesterday Sen. Hatch went on and on about how it was great for the country that we would finally have a hispanic AG, and continued with Gonzales' long, arduous, and meritorious life story.

I don't get it. Singling out Gonzales' race as a reason to confirm him is a ploy that could only work if his and another candidate's qualifications were equal. By stressing race (if you believe that it exists) as a reason for confirmation, Hatch is 1. using a somewhat racist rhetoric 2. making a completely transparent shill to a voting block. We've been having debates about the confirmation hearings, but they seem less like debates and more like repetition of talking points. The next time a Republican, or Salazar for that matter, iterates that Gonzales is a smart choice for the job because he's hispanic, I want a Democrat to call him on it for "pandering to a special interest group," because that's exactly what they're doing (this argument exists within the RNC noise machine's PR, never mind the torture memos), and this lets Democrats take a much needed step back in their evaluation of Gonzales. Let's put the Republicans on the defensive in regard to special interest groups.

Getting back to Gonzales' life story, gimme a break. He's been a Bush toady for the past 10 years. They should make that story into a TV movie on the networks, I'm sure it would help them sell their points much better. The bottom line is that when considering a candidate for a job like the AG, your race should not matter, and neither should your life story past that which is relevant to the job. Your qualifications are your prior work in the field, your logic, and for the AG, your commitment to serve the American people, not the president.

Besides, haven't they already got a hispanic with a sympathetic life story in the cabinet with Guiterrez? You can't do the same thing twice - booooring!!!!