The New Litmus Test
Mukasey was a shoe in. He had allayed everyone’s fears of his stance on torture. It’s illegal, he said! He was almost guaranteed a speedy approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then comes the waterboarding debacle. After being asked to clarify his stance on waterboarding as a torture method, Mukasey was not able to give a clear response. Mukasey “does not have enough information to determine if it is illegal.” His ambiguous statements have seriously jeopardized his appointment.
Clearly, Mukasey’s unwillingness to specify a stance on waterboarding throws his whole stance on torture into question. He is willing to prosecute all who enable the painful and dehumanizing methods, as long there is a very narrow definition of what actually is painful and dehumanizing. His initial declaration of willingness to protect human rights and decency was a facade. Should Mukasey be allowed to become our next Attorney General, we would be vindicating Alberto Gonzales and all who condone and promote torture as a national defense tool. Mukasey has shown to be evasive in his responses, just as Gonzales was in his responses to the panel. I don’t like being lied to, and I don’t like being played, and those are two things Mukasey has already shown to be capable of.
It is disappointing that torture has come about as a new litmus test for politicians and bureacrats alike. It’s something I took for granted. No one that has such contempt for human dignity should be promoted to direct our country.
You’re absolutely right, Matt. And shame on the six Democrats who voted to confirm him for political convenience.
I disagree. The political problem with saying waterboarding is torture under *current* law is that it would require him to prosecute many members of the Bush administration. Mukasey said that, should Congress pass legislation classifying waterboarding as torture, he will enforce it. Why hasn’t any Democrat proposed such legislation?
and Thad- how exactly is voting against nearly every single member of your party politically convenient?
It was politically convenient to the Democrats that voted for him because (Chuck Schumer’s argument, not mine) to reject Mukasey would be to allow Bush to appoint a “temporary” caretaker AG who would not have to be confirmed by the Senate for the rest of Bush’s term. While I see the reasoning behind Schumer’s argument, I reject it as does the majority of the Senate Democrats.
And maybe many members of the administration *should* be prosecuted. . . . After all, despite what King George thinks, they’re *not* above the law.
Waterboarding is torture. Since when did it become okay for a country that makes laws to be convient for members of the administration?