Unclothed emperor Bush introduces Mukasey to a cheering crowd at [cough] Justice:

“And that is to use all of the strength of mind and body that I have to help you to continue to protect the freedom and the security of the people of this country, and their civil rights and liberties, through the neutral and evenhanded application of the Constitution and the laws enacted under it.”

He said he would “ask myself in every decision I make whether it helps you to do that, to take the counsel not only of my own insights but also of yours, and to pray that I can help give you the leadership you deserve.”

Er, is there any reason to believe—put down your coffee—that the Justice Department has not applied the law in a “neutral and even-handed” manner?

If so, why, who could possibly have been responsible for that?  Read more 

Ah, yes. Senatorial master debating. Glenn writes, after pointing out that Mukasey only won confirmation by a 53-40 vote, points out:

Every time Congressional Democrats failed this year to stop the Bush administration (i.e., every time they “tried”), the excuse they gave was that they “need 60 votes in the Senate” in order to get anything done. Each time Senate Republicans blocked Democratic legislation, the media helpfully explained not that Republicans were obstructing via filibuster, but rather that, in the Senate, there is a general “60-vote requirement” for everything.

Beyond that, four Senate Democrats running for President missed the vote, and all four had announced they oppose Mukasey’s confirmation. Thus, at least 44 Senators claimed to oppose Mukasey’s confirmation — more than enough to prevent it via filibuster. So why didn’t they filibuster, the way Senate Republicans have on virtually every measure this year which they wanted to defeat?

Numerous Senate Democrats delivered dramatic speeches from the floor as to why Mukasey’s confirmation would be so devastating to the country. The Washington Post said the “vote came after more than four hours of impassioned floor debate.”

That’ll show ’em!

Well, let’s hope on retroactive immunity for the telcos, Dodd comes through.  Read more 

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Which is pretty funny, since as President, Bush seems to have pre-approved pardons for every war criminal with a Republican party card. McClatchy’s Joe Galloway has the money quote:

When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, the state investigated, indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff who, with his deputies, had waterboarded a criminal suspect. That sheriff got no pardon from Gov. Bush.

Of course waterboarding’s illegal. And that would make Bush a war criminal. No wonder Mukasey crawfished on torture—he didn’t want his boss to ever have to go before a tribunal. The only wonder, if it is, indeed, a wonder, is that Senate Judiciary members DiFi and Upchuck sold out Leahy and Feingold, and let Mukasey’s nomination proceed.

Of course waterboarding is torture. Galloway:

Is waterboarding torture?

The answer to all of these questions, put simply, is yes.

All of Judge Michael Mukasey’s artful dodging and word play to avoid acknowledging the obvious to the august members of Senate Judiciary Committee does nothing to change the fact.

Every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee knows that waterboarding is torture, even the majority who voted to send Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be attorney general, America’s chief law enforcement official, to the floor for a vote.

When you hog-tie a human being, tilt him head down, stuff a rag in his mouth and over his nostrils and pour water onto the rag slowly and steadily to the point where his lungs fill with water and he’s suffocating and drowning, that is torture.

For example:  Read more 

What Norah Ephron (!) said:

Nonetheless, when I read on Friday that Schumer had decided to support Michael Mukasey for attorney general, thus making Mukasey’s confirmation by the Senate inevitable, my heart sank. I read his justification of his vote. He said that Mukasey was the best we could hope for from this administration. He said the Justice Department needed to be rebuilt. He said that no nominee for attorney general was ever going to come out against waterboarding, and that Mukasey at least promised to follow the law if (somehow) the Senate passed an anti-waterboarding law (that survived a Bush veto). It’s probably unfair to blame Schumer entirely for this; after all, Dianne Feinstein made the same decision. And more than half the Democrats in the Senate are apparently prepared to vote for Mukasey.

But here’s what they should do instead:

Reject Mukasey.

Make Bush send up another nominee.

Reject that nominee if he won’t take a position on waterboarding.

And just keep on doing it.

Because it’s the right thing to do. Because waterboarding is torture. Because we are torturing people and it has to stop, and it will never stop unless the Democrats make it stop.

And forget about the Justice Department. No one will fix the Justice Department until there’s a new president.

Bingo.  Read more 

And that’s why they like it.  Read more 

[Good liberals DiFi and Schumer throw Bush a lifeline. Nice work. Always good to see torture enabled. Leading to this kind of headline: Bush attorney general nominee gets boost. Way to go, DiFi, Chuck. I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you.]

Leahy’s going to vote No on the Mukasey nomination.

I hope this is on the grounds of Mukasey’s views on overweening executive power**, rather than merely (!!) on torture, though I congratulate the Democrats on actually managing to frame the “waterboarding” issue properly.*

Now, if we can just make sure the nomination never comes to the floor, I’d really be doing the happy dance.  Read more 

Times:

In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it [Bush], legal experts said Wednesday.

So it’s come to this:  Read more 

CNN:

Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, said he will not support President Bush’s nominee because Mukasey said the president can overrule a federal statute when the nation’s defense is at risk.

“There’s no such provision in the Constitution whatsoever,” said Dodd, a 2008 presidential candidate.

More like this, please!  Read more 

After all, Mukasey’s job at Justice will be to consolidate authoritarian gains after Gonzales laid waste to the place and got everyone who was either competent or not a complete tool to resign in disgust if they hadn’t already been fired. Mukasey will entrench the theory of the unitary executive** and write more torture memos, just wait and see. Mukasey is just as legitimate as the rest of the criminal Bush regime; that is, not at all.

Still, accepting the theory that it’s better to have a competent authoritarian at the helm of Justice, instead of a sociopath, it might make sense to let Mukasey slide in. Who knows? He might even see the light. Bruce Fein did. And Kevin has a good suggestion for how:

There’s really no good solution here — and like it or not, we don’t have the votes to defeat Mukasey anyway. But as an unsatisfactory compromise, I’d recommend that Democrats simply vote present as a bloc when Mukasey’s nomination comes to the floor, allowing the GOP to confirm him using only their own votes. It’s one way of letting the American public know clearly that although we’ll let the president choose his own advisors, they’re his advisors and he’s responsible for them. It may not be feasible to block Mukasey’s nomination, but there’s no reason any Democrat needs to actively approve of it.

Bingo!  Read more 

What a surprise. Maybe somebody could ask Mukasey if he blew up frogs by shoving firecrackers up their assholes when he was a kid, like Bush did. Perhaps that would form a common bond. Anyhow, WaPo:

Mukasey also demurred when he was repeatedly asked whether a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding constitutes unlawful torture. Mukasey had strongly condemned the use of harsh interrogation tactics yesterday and said that the president could not order treatment that violated constitutional prohibitions.

But Mukasey said he could not elaborate on what techniques might be allowed, and specifically refused to answer questions from Democrats about whether waterboarding specifically was unconstitutional, saying he did know enough about what the technique entailed.

Oh, bullshit. Pure obfuscation. How about we keep it simple, and just say that if the Spanish Inquisition did it, it’s torture. Well, guess what?  Read more 

WaPo:

In the late 1970s and ’80s, Mukasey and Giuliani were among a group of high-powered former prosecutors who revitalized the litigation practice at the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler. Mukasey is now on the Tooliain campaign’s judicial advisory board, and his son works for Giuliani’s law firm.

“It’s almost like a fraternity. Everybody thinks they are wearing a white hat doing good working for the government,” said Robert G. Morvillo, former chief prosecutor of the Southern District’s criminal division and former boss of both Mukasey and Giuliani. Those two men “have grown up in the profession together,” he said.

Why, he’s practically one of The Family! Which I suppose means that Tooliani has been annointed to serve Bush’s Third Term. How re-assuring.  Read more 

Patrick, Patrick.

Leahy Set to Schedule Hearings on Mukasey
Demand for White House Papers Dropped

What are you thinking?  Read more 

As drational remarked at Kos:

More than anything else, the Mukasey nomination is an indication of the Administration’s weakness. Now is not the time for complacency or satisfaction. Democrats must use this replacement opportunity to hold the Administration accountable for it’s malfeasance at the DOJ.

Bingo!

That’s what we need to do with Bush for this nomination which, let us recall, Bush never wanted to take place, because God knows what even a Republican who wasn’t insane or corrupt would dig up over at Justice.

But how?  Read more