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Mukasey For Media Dummies
Since the media seems to be having difficulty in explaining the problem with the Mukasey nomination and his inability to call waterboarding torture, maybe a post-Gonzales civics lesson might help them.
Michael Mukasey was nominated by the President to be the Attorney General of the United States (USAG). The Attorney General's job is to be the prosecuting attorney on behalf of the people of the United States. Unlike the egregious behavior of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, would suggest, he is not there to protect the President. He is not the President's attorney. The White House Counsel is the President's attorney for legal matters arising from his role as President of the United States. The Attorney General represents the people of the United States. Or should.
The USAG is the chief law enforcement officer of our federal laws and treaties. Were a crime, say for example, torture, to be committed, he would be obligated to prosecute those responsible. All of them. And therein lies the problem for USAG nominee, Judge Mukasey.
Should Judge Mukasey correctly identify waterboarding as torture, then he would have to prosecute any member of the Bush administration who knew of, approved, condoned, executed or threatened to use waterboarding on anyone.
Does Mukasey know that the CIA, at the direction of some member(s) of the Bush Administration used waterboarding? He says no, but his reluctance to define waterboarding as torture, suggests that he has reason to believe they did.
Simply put, Judge Mukasey doesn't want to define waterboarding as torture, because then he would have to start investigating the CIA and the Bush Administration, and then prosecuting them.
This puts him in a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. This is more like amputating the hand that feeds you. And if investigations begin now, it's entirely possible that charges may not be brought until after Bush is out of office. Buh-bye pardons. Buh-bye commutation of sentences.
This goes to the heart of what the problem is with the Mukasey nomination. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that was used in the Spanish Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in the Italian Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in WWII by the Japanese government to torture their US prisoners of war, and was defined by our government then as torture. It is defined in the Geneva Conventions now as torture. Define waterboarding as torture, and you will likely have to start arresting members of the Administration.
That's Mukasey's dilemma.
Well, here's my dilemma. The law isn't some fashion that changes based on Who's Your Daddy. The laws we have represent the moral agreements that we hold as a nation, citizen to citizen. They are our minimum daily requirements for civilized behavior. If Mukasey can't define waterboarding as torture, then he's either too stupid, too dishonest, or too immoral and he can get the hell out of my Justice Department.
Really, it's just that simple. It's so simple that even the simple-minded in the media can understand it. And if they can't, it's because they won't.
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At least they call it "Torture" and at least they talk about "Revolt."
They lied about the Democratic debates because in these debates Republicans aren't even getting anyone to watch them or donate to them! And the "A noun, a verb, and 9/11" describes Rudi is going to stick, I believe.
Drop in suicide bombs? Is this another President and Cheney associated propaganda briefing?
U.S. Millionaires living like the middle class? Well lets see...doesn't that mean the middle class is living like paupers?
Now if only they could actually explain TORTURE, the Geneva Conventions, WHO SANCTIONED the TORTURE, and WHO has been DENYING that we torture, then we might get a real media back.
Casey,
My comment here about the police being awol on investigation is similar to our analogy of the Attorney General being AWOL on the law.
Sitting at the Code Pink house while they make calls to Dem. Senators re. Mukasey and I read this out loud to them while they dialed.
Thanks, Casey, brilliant analysis as usual.
More on today at the Open Thread...
Karen
I just wrote Feinstein re: Mukasey nomination, after getting a heads-up from you from the open thread that she wasn't committed to a NO vote.
Thanks for keeping me in the know.
Feinstein has a "sensible moderate" reputation in California (as opposed to Boxer's "Bay Area liberal" reputation), even though her husband is a war profiteer. She was last re-elected last year, when I couldn't vote due to time issues. The previous time she was re-elected, in 2000, I didn't vote for her either - I voted for Medea Benjamin, who ran on the Green ticket that year. Nevertheless, Feinstein must be held accountable, as she's such a venerable figure in both Democratic and California politics.
Well-stated, Casey.
Should be front-paged in lots of places.
Casey's post was featured on the JK blog today. Go check it out and say hi.
Yup. It surely was, because it's just that darn good.
(Which day-job blog post can be read in its entirety here, ahem...)
http://www.johnkerry.com/2007/11/1/just-say-no-mukasey
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Just Say No: Mukasey
This past September George W. Bush, the President of the United States — a position that, prior to his ascendancy at least, was generally seen as also being the nominal leader of the free world — nominated Michael Mukasey to replace his deposed crony Alberto Gonzales as U.S. Attorney General.
Mr. Gonzales, as you may recall, resigned his office under a dark cloud of accusations that included mendacity, arrogance, incompetence, and consistently putting partisan politics before public policy.
More to the point, in hearings before Congress Mr. Gonzales displayed a stubborn insistence on protecting the expansion of arbitrary presidential authority without accountability, and he repeatedly refused to condemn the use of extreme interrogation techniques like waterboarding as illegal and immoral actions that violate our best values and traditions.
And now this morning George W. Bush, the ultimate Roadblock Republican, the Obstructionist-in-Chief, petulantly accused Democrats of emboldening the terrorists and putting America’s security on the chopping block should they fail to confirm Mr. Mukasey’s nomination, thus leaving us without an Attorney General at a time when we are perched on the brink of a nuclear World War III in the Middle East. And so forth.
Mr. Mukasey, as you may recall, in hearings before Congress has displayed a stubborn insistence on protecting the expansion of arbitrary presidential authority without accountability, and he has repeatedly refused to condemn the use of extreme interrogation techniques like waterboarding as illegal and immoral actions that violate best values and traditions.
If this was the plot of a Tom Clancy novel, it might be fascinating to read but nobody would think it could ever happen in America. Unfortunately, this isn’t fiction. It’s real life, coming to you courtesy of the single most mendacious, arrogant, and imperialistic administration in our nation’s history.
Not surprisingly, Senator Kerry has no intention of allowing Mr. Mukasey to be confirmed as U.S. Attorney General:
Also not surprisingly, seeing that their choice for another complicit AG is in danger of being turned down, the Roadblock Republicans have turned to their minions in the media and their spokesbots in the conservative blogosphere for a full-court press in defense of Mr. Mukasey’s nomination. Their standard combination of obstructionism and obfuscation has managed to muddy the waters for many of their viewers/readers, leading liberal blogger and longtime Democratic activist Casey Morris to boil it back down to a more concise clarity in this post from the Democracy Cell Project website:
[This blog threader by Casey was quoted here in the JK blog post -- no need to repost it again in this context, obviously]
We agree with Casey Morris that allowing Mr. Mukasey to become the next U.S. Attorney General would be just all kinds of wrong — and so do Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, Senator Biden, Senator Durbin, Senator Whitehouse, and an ever-growing list of other Senators and Representatives who believe that it’s high time to rein in the Bush administration’s rampant excesses and kick the Roadblock Republicans back to the curb where they belong.
Feinstein says she'll vote for Mukasey's confirmation, according to an email I just received from CodePink LA.
I'm disappointed, but that's par for her.
I only wish I could join CodePink LA in their sit-in at the Feinstein local offices, but I am afraid I won't make it.