( – promoted by Clark)
My husband got annoyed enough by an article in this morning’s paper to e-mail the Post this letter:
As reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on November 2nd, federal Judge Michael Mukasey, President George Bush’s nominee for Attorney General, says the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding is “repugnant,” but he is unsure that it is illegal. If Judge Mukasey would submit himself to this technique, he might have a decided opinion on its legality.
Respectfully submitted,
Cornelius Alwood
Claire McCaskill said that, under the circumstances, she was “torn” about the nomination and that she would wrestle with it over the weekend. No wrestling needed, to our way of thinking. If Mukasey won’t call waterboarding torture, what’s to think about? As Pat Leahy, who’s on the Judiciary Committee, explained: torture is illegal in this country and waterboarding is torture (has been considered so for centuries), so waterboarding is illegal.
of my colleagues – a Democrat of my dad’s generation. He said that sometimes when there is a great threat to national security the President may have to make the decision to “do things” that weren’t necessarily legal. We talked about Roosevelt and lend/lease. He said he thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill about Mukasey.
I replied that this hearing wasn’t about the President but about the Attorney General. When the president ask his cabinet members to advise him on a course of action he is entitled to the absolute truth as irritating to him as that truth might be. We want an Attorney General who will reply “Mr. President, what you want to do is illegal.”
Now, the President may decide to take the action anyway. But that’s a different issue than the question before Congress. The question is: If this man is Attorney General, will he give legal advice on the straight and narrow on which the President and the nation can rely to be correct so that the President has the information he needs to make a good decision? We don’t need to decide what that “good decision” is right now. Just that this nominee can be relied on to give of his expertise accurately when asked.
So far, this man hasn’t shown that he will on this issue.
I’m not sure I convinced him, but he did admit that I had a point.
I hope that Claire doesn’t vote to approve him. Frankly, the issue of waterboarding should have already been dealt with. The idea that Mukasey will take office and then it will be up to him is a cop out. It looks from todays headlines as though he will get past the judiciary committee with the democrats blessing.
Dean says
Dean cites the precedent of the similar quid pro quo that the Judiciary Committee exacted from Elliot Richardson when they passed him out of the committee.
Lend/lease actually worked. Torture does not, contrary to what television shows starring Kiefer Sutherland say.
Then there’s the matter of committing a crime against humanity as opposed to selling stuff. There is no moral equivalence.
Mukasey has expressed very clearly that he supports an extreme form of the theory of the unitary executive which would allow the president to direct executive branch officers to conduct interrogations as he pleases. It is this theory that has been utilized by Bush, and earlier by Nixon, to try to empower the executive at the expense of other branches of the government. It would legitimatize signing statements and regulating conduct of executive agencies via executive order as well as the right of the executive to withhold information from the legislative branch.
Those congresspersons who express concern abut Mukasey’s unwillingness to commit to an exact definition of torture are perhaps equally reluctant to refuse to pass a candidate who entertains controversial and dangerous views about the constitution, but whose judicial competence and professional integrity are above question. Many may feel that to take exception to his constitutional views might not be considered legitimate, since, theoretically, a president should be able to make appointments that reflect his own philosophy.
You came at your answer from the perspective of a lawyer and gave me a fresh angle on the question.
He and I discussed that too. I do not claim there is ANY real equivalence, I simply say that we discussed it. It was an example of a President breaking the law and the country going along with it. Of course it wasn’t a secret either. That differentiates it too.
But my greater point is that whether or not you think the President is authorized under certain circumstances to circumvent the law (which an amazing number of people I know do believe) – that isn’t what this is Congressional debate is really about. This is about the competency of a man to be the attorney general. Let’s keep focus.
that the Democrats will hold up the nomination because Mukasey won’t call waterboarding torture or that they’ll refuse to confirm because of his radical ideas on the unitary executive or that they’ll insist on a special investigator. Perhaps they’ll make noises about all of those things, but in the end, they will–as they always do–cave. I am disgusted with them. Sure there’s Feingold, Webb, Sanders, Dodd, Leahy, and Kennedy. But aside from turncoat Lieberman, too many regular Democrats are, like Claire, “wrestling” with the obvious.
about “no wrestling needed.” Talking Points Memo has this statement from him:
Considering his explanation of the need to wrestle with the nomination, I think I was too harsh on Claire. Of course, if she votes to confirm, I’ll be on her case again.
In his discussion he makes the salient points far more clearly and with much greater assurance than I.