Babelfish: translating from Cabalese to English

Gonzales Defends Call on Texas Plan

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the Justice Department's decision to ignore staff lawyers' concerns that a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay would dilute minority voting rights.

A Justice Department memo released Friday showed that agency staffers unanimously objected to the Texas plan, which DeLay pushed through the Legislature to help elect more Republicans to the U.S. House.

Senior agency officials, appointed by President Bush, brushed aside concerns about the possible impact on minority voting and approved the new districts for the 2004 elections.

Gonzales said the plan was approved by people "confirmed by the Senate to exercise their own independent judgment'' and their disagreement with other agency employees doesn't mean the final decision was wrong.

Translation: Republicans, hand-picked by other Republicans and approved by still other Republicans, like districts that result in the election of more Republicans.

The decision appears to have been correct, Gonzales said, because a three-judge federal panel upheld the plan and Texas has since elected one additional black congressman.

Translation: the opinion of Judge Higginbotham (appointed by Republican Ronald Reagan) and Judge Rosenthal (appointed by Republican George H.W. Bush) just so happened to favor the Republican-sponsored plan that resulted in the election of more Republicans. (Judge Ward, a Clinton appointee, dissented as to the substance of the decision.)

Perhaps we could add Cabalese to Google's translation service as well.