You know something is wrong ....

[Chmee]

... when Orrin Hatch is essentially making an affirmative action argument as the reason to confirm a guy as Attorney General! What's the weather report in Hell this week?

The Senate debated today whether to confirm Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general, with Republicans describing him as supremely qualified and Democrats countering that his role in devising new policies on prisoner interrogations rendered him unfit to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer despite his intelligence and compelling life story.

A final Senate vote, at first considered likely today, is now not expected until at least Thursday, people on both sides of the aisle said. Republicans asserted that the delay was arising from the Democrats' not wanting to give Mr. Bush another confirmation to hail in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night. On the floor, Democrats indicated there was much more to it than that.

"Judge Gonzales is the wrong man for this job," Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, declared, using the title Mr. Gonzales acquired as a member of the Texas Supreme Court. Mr. Gonzales' actions as White House counsel, Mr. Leahy continued, "have tarnished our country's moral leadership in the world and put American soldiers and American citizens at greater risk."

Leading Republicans countered that the confirmation of Mr. Gonzales would mark a great day in American history, since he would be the first person of Hispanic descent to head the Justice Department.

"Every Hispanic-American in the country is watching," said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which voted, 10 to 8, along party lines last week to endorse Mr. Gonzales's nomination.

Mr. Gonzales's rise from childhood poverty in Texas to Harvard Law School and the highest levels of government shows, Mr. Hatch said, that "in America there is no limit to how far they can go."

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