• Sens. Schumer and Feinstein's vote assure his confirmation:
In announcing her support for Mukasey, Feinstein, D-Calif., said "first and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales," referring to the former attorney general who resigned in September after months of questions about his honesty.Really? How is he not the very same thing as Gonzales? Mukasey has stated he doesn't really know what waterboarding is, so he doesn't know if it's illegal. It's been done for many centuries. It's done one way only. International law prohibits it. Mukasey hasn't said he doesn't know that; yet, panelists laud his honesty:
Schumer's announcement followed a private meeting Friday with Mukasey to discuss waterboarding.What kind of logic is this? Utterly ridiculous is what kind, and the discussion has slogged along for three weeks. Does Mukasey mean to suggest it's possible the Bush administration has invented some form of nontorturous waterboarding? No, he just wants to protect them from litigation:
"I deeply oppose it," Schumer said of waterboarding. "Unfortunately, this nominee, indeed any proposed by President Bush, will not agree with this. I am, however, confident that this nominee would enforce a law that bans waterboarding."
Schumer, who was Mukasey's chief Democratic sponsor, said the retired judge told him that if Congress passes a law banning waterboarding "the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law." Schumer said Mukasey said he would enforce any congressional ban the [sic] controversial interrogation method.
Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," and in a letter to senators this week said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials vulnerable to lawsuits.Incredible! Not only is the man a feeb, he's a lying feeb—and truly cut from the same cloth as Alberto Gonzales. Yes, it'd be a shame if someone filed a lawsuit, as if there is a judge in this country today who wouldn't throw the case out in response to the government's assertion of national security. I'm not aware of criminal statutes prohibiting forms of torture, but I know they're enumerated by international law under which our government is subject. Would any reasonable person have a problem identifying waterboarding as torture? NO!
Consider the analogy of interrogating people while stretching them on the rack. The rack works one way only: a person is immobilized on a plank, his arms tethered to a locking, ratcheted wench which, when taken to an extreme, can pull the arm joints out of the shoulder sockets. I'm fairly certain there isn't state or federal legislation prohibiting this technique; but, can a reasonable person say it isn't painful, cruel or unusual? A man in his sixties who has served as a federal judge who says he's never heard of such things is simply not telling the truth—and lying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee should bounce him out of contention.
Bush's arguments for Mukasey's confirmation are characteristically underwhelming:
On Thursday, Bush had warned that the Justice Department would go without a leader in a time of war if Democrats thwarted Mukasey.DoJ hasn't had a leader since Bush entered the White House, and his assertion there isn't a single member of the bar in the whole country who is familiar with torture, knows it's illegal and could manage DoJ is pure and utter nonsense. So Mukasey will be confirmed and waterboarding will continue. You can expect to learn later interrogators added racks and probably iron maidens as well. Mukasey won't know what those are, either, because he doesn't want anyone to get a summons. What sniveling cowardice.
Bush also said that if the Judiciary Committee were to block Mukasey because of his noncommittal stance on the legality of waterboarding, it would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general.
