The article describes Democrats as voting against a man with the wrong personality and insufficient independence to be Attorney General. Note how this story frames Democratic opposition as if the Democrats are presuming to decide for the President what kind of person he wants for his own staff. Since many rightly think that is the President's business the Democrats look bad through this frame.

The article does dance around the issue of torture. Look at the section below where it describes torture, without using the word, as "White House policies in the war on terror" and "treatment of foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib .. <and> ... Guantanamo"

As if the torture allegations only reach that deeply.

Democrats certainly complained about alot more than his evasiveness in answering questions about White House policies. They complained about Gonzales connections to torture. But the strongest of those statements you won't find in the AP article. Instead we are treated to the quotes of Democrats questioning his judgement, another personal characteristic that many believe is in the President's purview, instead of Senators.

What you don't find are statements like these, from a story by Scripps Howard

AP could have chosen, bud did not, any of these quotes from Reuters:

The AP version of todays events managed to weed out all of the strongest statements made by Democratic Senators while casting Democrats as obstructionist and petty. In a committee where torture is the elephant in the room, the AP story managed to miss the elephant.

Democrats need to redouble their efforts to get the word out about the true nature of Senatorial opposition to Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.