Colorado's New Senator - Ken Salazar -- Democrat???

This from the Washington Post explains a bit about the confirmation hearings for Dubya's Attorney General designate, Alberto Gonzales. It reads, in part:

But under often tough questioning from Democrats and some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gonzales said he could not recall key details of his involvement in the production of an August 2002 memo that narrowly defined the tactics that constitute torture. He also declined repeated invitations to repudiate a past administration assertion that the president has the authority to ignore anti-torture statutes on national security grounds.

An article entitled, "An inauspicious beginning for Salazar," in which Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News provides comment on Colorado's new Democratic Senator, Ken Salazar's, unabashed, televised, before-the-confirmation-committee, support of Alberto Gonzales becasue, well, because he's Latino and has struggled mightily to get where he's at. And, that he has. And, God Bless Gonzales for overcoming all of the things he had to overcome to become the Attorney General designate. But, as Littwin notes -- after providing a litany of scary, scary descriptions of Gonzales and his perception of Geneva Convention protections of prisoners and the President's ability to ignore Congressional legislation -- Littwin notes:

Or to testimony from Adm. John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general, that "the prisoners' abuses that we've seen . . . found their genesis in the decision to get cute with the Geneva Conventions."

But if he was too cute for the admiral, he wasn't too cute for Salazar, who told me Friday - after returning to Colorado in his first homecoming as a U.S. senator - he had no qualms about introducing Gonzales, although he hadn't yet committed to voting for him.

Neocon pundits are suggesting that Ol' Ken's crossing over the isle to support Gonzales was smart. I'm thinking it was, at least, naive and, at most, irresponsibly glib.

Littwin also wonders about the politics of the whole thing. Who better (in Karl Rove's eyes) to sit in a chair before the confirmation committee in support of the Gonzales nomination than a newly-elected Latino Senator who happens, JUST HAPPENS, to be (perhaps titularly) a Democrat.