So Much For Moral Clarity

Everyone was all excited yesterday when Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey called torture antithetical to the American way. Heck, I was excited. Well, turns out he's just another slave to power. Jeez, has the entire political class in this country been to a mass emasculation ceremony?

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Mukasey if he thought waterboarding was Constitutional. "If waterboarding is torture... torture is not Constitutional," he replied.

Whitehouse wasn't satisfied. "That is a massive hedge.... It either is or it isn't." Doesn't Mukasey have an opinion on whether waterboarding is torture? He went on to describe the technique, which involves using a wet rag to make the detainee feel like he's drowning. Mukasey replied with the same answer: "If it amounts to torture, then it is not Constitutional."

I'm very disappointed," Whitehouse said, adding that Mukasey's reply had been "purely semantic."

"Sorry," replied Mukasey.

Yeah, we're sorry too.

Combine this with Mukasey's repeated statements that the President has an inherent right to break some Congressional laws, and you'll see that, on the key issues of executive power and the destruction of the Constitution, Mukasey will change absolutely nothing at the Justice Department. He may be a little less partisan and make the place a little less politicized, too little to notice, actually, since there are minefields of wingnut lawyers roaming around those halls that he'll never even know about. But on the core issues, it's business as usual.

I'd say reject him, but that's just not going to happen. Sad, isn't it?