For Chris Dodd it was painfully personal as he stood alone in the Senate Chamber Thursday and said he opposed attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales. He was doing it for his father. Because of his father's history, he could not conveniently dismiss with ease or logic the concerns raised by Gonzales' advice to the White House on torture. Tom Dodd was a Nuremberg prosecutor nearly 60 years ago, a tough legal strategist who insisted, against the advice of powerful allied officials, that Nazi war criminals be subject to the rule of law. The trials were, the son said, "the most formative experience of my father's life at that time." "What does it say about our nation's commitment to the rule of law," Tom Dodd's son asked from the U.S. Senate floor, "that this nominee will not say that torture is against the law?"
In Opposing Gonzales, Senator Chris Dodd Invokes His Father
Dodd Casts A Personal Vote
In Opposing Gonzales, Senator Invokes His Father
February 4, 2005
By DAVID LIGHTMAN, Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- For Chris Dodd it was painfully personal as he stood alone in the Senate Chamber Thursday and said he opposed attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales.
He was doing it for his father.
Because of his father's history, he could not conveniently dismiss with ease or logic the concerns raised by Gonzales' advice to the White House on torture.
Tom Dodd was a Nuremberg prosecutor nearly 60 years ago, a tough legal strategist who insisted, against the advice of powerful allied officials, that Nazi war criminals be subject to the rule of law. The trials were, the son said, "the most formative experience of my father's life at that time."
"What does it say about our nation's commitment to the rule of law," Tom Dodd's son asked from the U.S. Senate floor, "that this nominee will not say that torture is against the law?"
Gonzales won Senate confirmation Thursday by a 60-36 vote, and is the first Hispanic attorney general. But it was an uneasy vote, coming at the end of a somber, daylong debate that was largely a parade of Democratic doubters who echoed the thoughts of Dodd and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.
"Mr. Gonzales was at the heart of the Bush administration's notorious decision to authorize our forces to commit flagrant acts of torture," Kennedy said.
Critics have attacked Gonzales for saying in January 2002 that some rights of prisoners of war spelled out in the Geneva Conventions were "quaint."
Gonzales supporters were less vocal Thursday - and barely visible - though they noted their candidate had denounced torture at his Jan. 6 confirmation hearing. Among those who came to the White House counsel's defense was Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., one of six Democrats to back Gonzales.
He urged colleagues to "appreciate the context" of Gonzales' advice on prisoner treatment, recalling how the nation was engaged in a difficult debate in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The use of the word "quaint," Lieberman said, was "a bit restrained and diplomatic."
His methodical 20-minute explanation of his vote probably moved no votes; Gonzales' confirmation was a long-known conclusion and the only mystery was the size of the opposition.
Dodd, though, provided unexpected context and drama.
He stood up around noon and delivered the kind of speech the Senate rarely sees anymore, the red-faced stemwinder crafted to stir the soul.
Standing on the same floor where his father also held court from 1959 to 1971, the son insisted that even the Nazis deserved the rule of law.
"Even those most despicable and depraved human beings were given an opportunity to retain counsel and testify in their own defense," Chris Dodd said. "We were different. It did not depend on what the enemy was. It depended on what we stood for."
And now, charged many Democrats, came Gonzales and the Bush White House, seeking to deny prisoners certain rights.
Chris Dodd would not buy it.
"The world learned something about the United States of America 60 years ago," he said. "It learned that this nation would not tailor its eternal principles to the conflict of the moment."
Dodd rarely votes against any presidential nominee, believing not only that a president has earned the right to have his own team, but that a confirmation vote is a good way to invest political capital. Better to cast a yes vote for a nominee, Dodd believes, and then express disappointment later.
But with Dodd, his father is often an unpredictable element in his calculations. Tom Dodd lost his bid for a third term to represent Connecticut in the U.S. Senate term in 1970, after being censured by the Senate in 1967 for misusing campaign money. Chris Dodd - and a number of Senate colleagues - often felt Tom Dodd was judged far too harshly, that he was steamrolled by a political bandwagon few were willing to stop.
In many ways, the son's career has been a tribute to the father. A full-length portrait hangs in the son's Senate conference room, and a link on his Senate website offers an elaborate biography of the father - without mentioning the censure.
Most telling, the son's votes on nominees are sometimes flavored by the father's legacy.
He backed Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001, one of only eight Democrats to do so (Lieberman was opposed) and was one of three Democrats to back Pentagon nominee John Tower in 1989.
In both cases, Dodd recalled how his father endured "trial by press," and noted that Tower had been one of Tom Dodd's few defenders.
The Gonzales nomination was a different sort of challenge.
Dodd has been torn between a desire to protest the torture policy and the longstanding belief that a president deserves his own people.
A few days ago, Dodd stood in a hallway after a Democratic policy meeting and mused about how the torture policy was more than just a fleeting controversy. He talked about Nuremberg, about his father, about how the United States had long been a beacon of righteousness, even in the most dire of times.
When he took the Senate stage Thursday the chamber was all but empty. Only Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who was waiting to speak next, was in his seat two rows back.
Dodd began with a recitation of why he liked Gonzales and described his two standards for judging nominees: whether they have the "personal qualities" needed to do the job, and have demonstrated an understanding of the duties.
Gonzales passed the first test, but, Dodd said, "this nomination is not simply about Alberto Gonzales' personal qualities. If it were, then he would be unanimously confirmed."
His voice was starting to rise, as it became clear he wanted his message to resonate far beyond Capitol Hill. "In a nation founded on the principle of human freedom and dignity," he said, "he has endorsed, unfortunately, the position that torture can be permissible."
He outlined how such a view went against not just the U.S. Constitution, but the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual.
Dodd's right hand was now in a fist as he pounded the air.
"He has stood on the side of policies that are in direct conflict with the laws, treaties and military practices that have long guided this nation and its citizenry," Dodd said.
He detailed Gonzales' history of advising the White House on prisoner treatment and concluded "this legal reasoning is stunning in its implications."
A lot of senators said similar things Thursday, but what gave this speech special oomph was its coda.
At Nuremberg, Dodd recalled, the world learned "that as far as the United States of American is concerned, even the mightiest cannot escape the long arm of justice.
"And it learned that our nation will recognize the words `I was just following orders' for what they really are: a cowardly excuse which has no place in a free nation of men and women."
With that, he turned and left, holding no press conferences, issuing no further statements.
A discussion of this story with Courant Washington Bureau Chief David Lightman is scheduled to be shown on New England Cable News each hour today between 9 a.m. and noon.
