Mukasey's Confirmation

[tayefeth]

Thanks to spineless Democrats and Presidential candidates, we in the USA now have an Attorney General who thinks that whether something is torture depends on whether or not the USA uses it. That's right. The man who answered questions about whether waterboarding is torture with "I don't have the security clearance to know if that technique is used

Comments

[celandineb]

It's actually quite easy to decide if something is torture. If you wouldn't want someone doing it to your mom, or your kid, or yourself, it's torture. Very simple.

I rather wish that all of these people waffling about whether waterboarding (or anything else) is torture, got to experience it. I think they'd wise up pretty quickly.

[tayefeth]

Exactly. You certainly don't need a security clearance or any information on whether we use a particular technique in order to decide if it's torture. A technique cannot be torture if we don't use it, but not torture if we do use it, or vice versa.

[eyelessgame]

Uhm, I wouldn't want someone cutting in line in front of my mother. I think your bar is a tad low? :)

That said, partial-drowning interrogation is torture, obviously. Mukasey refused to say it definitely was, because otherwise he'd have to prosecute the administraiton he was going to work for.

I don't get why so much of the congress keeps falling in line behind this more-hated-than-Nixon president... I'm especially pissed at Feinstein and Schumer.

[barking_iguana]

The Presidential candidates miss most votes that aren't close. They often announce their positions, but don't hang out in DC to actually cast votes. If you want to attack them for that practice in general, fine. But I don't think all of them were trying to hide their position on Mukesey.

[tayefeth]

As I understand it, Congresscritters have ways to allow someone else to cast a vote for them, if they actually want to be on record.

[barking_iguana]

As you've probably seen in the video, they do that in the Texas legislature. I'm pretty sure they don't in Washington. There are vote pairs of people on opposite sides who won't be there and let it be known that they'd cancel each others vote. That gets noted in some unofficial records, but I'm pretty sure it's not part of the official record.

[tayefeth]

All the more reason for Congresscritters to be in Washington doing their jobs, rather than on the campaign trail a year and more before the election. We pay Congress to act as a check on the Presidency, and this is what we get?

[gaylord500]

Blame goes with Bush, and that he's the elected, pro-torture President, than the Democrats. Until the next election, it was either Mukasey or the default whoever is already there, which is someone worse.

[tayefeth]

Sorry, I don't buy it. Blame attaches to the Democrats for failing to make absolutely clear that Mukesey's excuses and weaselings were just that and for failing to make their majority mean anything.

[gaylord500]

I've see the blogsphere reframe this debate about torture in the government as a Democrat problem rather than a Republican problem. I don't buy it. The Republicans put torture in government, and deserve the ultimate blame for this issue.

On the nomination, whether we like it or not, the Republicans have power and are asserting the power to torture people in a way that a lot of Americans seem to support. The Democrats have Congress, but they don't have the Presidency. There's no way that this President will nominate an Attorney General which will investigate and punish the Executive Branch's activities honestly and truthfully. That's going to have to wait for a new President to happen. In light of that, Mukasey is not terrible. He's not Democrat, he's not a complete independent, but is closest thing to one this government can put forward. If Gonzales hadn't self-destructed, they wouldn't have even done that.

There are other battles coming, and soon. The waterboarding law, the Iraq funding bill, and other thigns.

[tayefeth]

I'm not debating torture. I'm using torture as an example of the Democrats' inability to display tangible evidence that they're vertebrates. Bush's lies and manipulations and downright criminal activity are no excuse to let his nominees get off without answering crucial questions, and letting the public see for themselves that his nominees are trying to hide.