White House counsel Alberto Gonzales won U.S. Senate confirmation yesterday as the nation's next attorney general with the second highest number of "no" votes ever for a successful nominee for the post. The Republican-led Senate rejected Democrats' complaints that Gonzales helped craft policies that contributed to the torture of foreign detainees, and approved him on a largely party-line vote, 60-36. Gonzales, 49, a former Texas Supreme Court justice and President George W. Bush's top lawyer for the past four years, was quickly sworn in at the White House as the first Hispanic to head the Justice Department.
