Even now that he's got the damned job, Mukasey still won't answer the question

[thatcrazycajun]

Is waterboarding torture? Is it illegal? If not, should it be specifically outlawed? New-fledged Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to answer these questions during his confirmation hearings last year, you may recall, almost kept him out of the job. Once safely ensconced, though, you'd think he'd 'fess up at last.

Oh, but no, as this USA Today online article notes: even now that he's been sworn in, the obstinate sumbitch still won't cop to any kind of public affirmation of what most Americans, including many in Congress on both sides of the aisle, already find blindingly obvious: This shit is torture and has no business whatsodamnever being in the toolbox of any US law enforcement or military interrogators. Doubletalk and obfuscation are all the nation's top cop has to offer on this issue, and will remain so in perpetuity:
Mukasey sent a letter Tuesday to the committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., signaling that he will never publicly conclude that waterboarding is illegal. (Emphasis added.)

Nor will he even consider supporting Congressional efforts to legislate a ban on the use of the technique, at least not without first consulting the very people who would be subject to it:
Mukasey said he would want to hear the views of intelligence agents and state department officials before advising support of such a ban, despite his moral opposition to the method.

But the real money quote comes from Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorist counsel for Human Rights Watch:
"Mukasey's refusal to declare the use of waterboarding against an American illegal indicates the lengths to which he is willing to go to protect past abusers from possible prosecution. Under what circumstances would the United States ever accept as legal one of its citizens being strapped to a board and suffocated with water?" (This assumes that any new ban passed would be retroactive, or that existing law were found to prohibit it sufficiently to prosecute. One may hope.)

It all goes back to what MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said recently: that the presidency of George W. Bush has devolved into having as its raison d'être the legalistic coverage of the ass of George W. Bush. And that ass-covering extends to all his subordinates, and any officers of the law or the armed forces who might have even a teensy bit of tender butt-cheek exposed on this issue.

Comments

[mshollie.livejournal.com]

Keith Olbermann rocks.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

Yea, verily, yea!