Muckraker is keeping tabs on the votes for Mukasey.
"Consider how President Bush has degraded the office of attorney general," the New York Times editorial begins.
Mr. Mukasey’s letter to the Senate committee accepts the administration’s use of the so-called shocks-the-conscience test to determine the legality of interrogation methods, rather than the clear and specific prohibitions against torture, humiliation and cruel treatment embedded in American and international law.
Which is one way of saying Michael Mukasey is no respecter of the law. Great choice for attorney general!
There seems to be little chance that Mr. Bush will appoint the sort of attorney general that the nation needs, a job that includes enforcing voting rights laws and civil rights laws and ensuring that criminal prosecutions are done fairly. Still, senators with a conscience that can be shocked should insist that Mr. Bush meet a higher standard than this nomination.
Or risk complicity. A report has Mukasey protecting the administration... already.
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, legal experts said Wednesday. ...Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
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