Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Politics Topples Attorney General Gonzales , 08/29/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec07/gonzales_8-29.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What organizations or people enforce laws in the United States?

2. Who is in charge of making sure that the laws are enforced correctly?

3. What is the Justice Department?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Who is the attorney general and why is he in the news this week?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic to hold the post, announced his resignation Monday and President Bush reluctantly agreed.

2. How did President Bush respond to Gonzales' news?

"It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons," the president said at a news conference.

3. What is the attorney general's job in the government?

As attorney general, Gonzales was part of the Cabinet -- the most senior government officials who advise the president.

As head of the Justice Department, he was charged with enforcing federal laws dealing with issues such as drug trafficking, corporate fraud, Internet fraud, child pornography, organized crime and more recently, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, prosecuting terrorists.

4. Why was Gonzales criticized even before he became attorney general?

But even before becoming attorney general, Gonzales faced criticism for trying to stretch the law.

In 2002, when he was the White House counsel, he wrote several memos that seemed to suggest the United States could ignore international laws preventing the torture.

The documents, made public during the investigations into the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, stated that parts of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war were "obsolete" and some provisions "quaint," Reuters reported.

Democrats also criticized Gonzales for expanding the powers of the president through a secret wiretapping program established in the wake of Sept. 11.

5. When did Gonzales lose the confidence of Republicans? What happened?

But the issue that led many Republicans in Congress to lose confidence in him was his handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorney generals prior to the 2006 elections.

When testifying before Congress in April Gonzales insisted that the dismissals were based on the prosecutors' job performances, not politics. But testimony from his colleagues suggested otherwise and when questioned on specifics, Gonzales often answered, "I don't know" and "I don't recall," leaving many with the sense that he was being evasive.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Should Alberto Gonzales have resigned from his position as attorney general? Why or why not?

2. According to the article, the job of the Justice Department has shifted to include more anti-terrorism enforcement. Do you think this is a good idea, why or why not?

3. Research the wiretapping program and legal proceedings at the Guantanamo Detention Center. What role did Alberto Gonzales play? What other decisions and policies was he involved in? What do you think his legal legacy will be?

3. Much has been made about Alberto Gonzales close ties to President Bush. Look back in history to other attorney generals and the presidents they served. Are there similarities between them and Gonzales? What does this tell you about the role of the attorney general in the executive branch?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.