So much for Michael Mukasey
February 1st, 2008, 1:08 pm · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
When Bush picked Michael Mukasey as his new attorney general, a number of writers, including some on the left, argued this was a good pick: Mukasey was conservative, favored a high degree of executive power, but he was principled.
I had my doubts about that when he told the Senate during confirmation that he couldn’t say whether waterboarding was torture since he didn’t know anything about CIA interrogations yet. Which is nonsense, the equivalent of saying he doesn’t know whether assassinating foreign leaders is illegal because he has no idea whether our government does that.
In recent Senate hearings, Mukasey proves what I should have known in advance: Bush would never pick an attorney general who would admit that torture is illegal (also immoral, but I admit that’s not a legal term).
•Mukasey says the legality of waterboarding depends entirely on whether they’re getting good, necessary information out of it (I presume this would apply to any sort of torture).
•He says he’s been told the CIA doesn’t waterboard, but he still won’t rule it illegal or illegal claiming it would be wrong to be speculating or telling “people in the field … what they have to refrain from or not refrain from in a situation that is not performing.”
Of course, the whole purpose of having laws and legal opinions is telling people whether they should refrain from certain actions, but this isn’t about logic or law, is it? It’s not necessary for a lawyer to actually witness a crime committed to decide whether it’s a crime or not.
•Mukasey also asserts it would be wrong to offer a legal opinion on any aspect of interrogation because that would tell our enemies what we wouldn’t do, which would be somehow giving them an advantage (”They won’t crush our testicles! Now we can attack and know that if we’re captured, they’ll never break us!”).
What this comes down to is that Bush picked an AG in the Gonzalez mold who will dutifully sanction or cover up, as necessary, Bush’s belief that the government should and does have the power to torture people.
Yes, I know our secret agencies have tortured people before Bush, but never have we had a president fight for their right to do so—just as the fact some police have beaten confessions out of suspects doesn’t justify a politician fighting to make that legal. That we have a pro-torture president disgusts me beyond belief.
