Despite what the articles say, he'll get confirmed.
Bush is into it now,
"Bush moves to save Mukasey nomination"
and as we know, the little dictator always gets what he wants!
"Torture issue could threaten Mukasey Senate confirmation." by Laurie Kellman Associated Press November 1, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - Prospects for Michael Mukasey's confirmation as the nation's 81st attorney general dimmed Wednesday after he again refused to equate waterboarding with torture and endorsed many of President Bush's positions on executive power.
The chief obstacle is the Senate Judiciary Committee. If all nine of the committee's Republicans vote yes, it would only take support from one Democrat to move the nomination to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation. There, confirmation was expected to win well in excess of a majority.
So he is still expected to win confirmation, no matter what, which makes this a contrived bunch of hot fart mist!
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Mukasey was well qualified and answered the committee's questions the best he could, considering he is not cleared to view classified documents on interrogation techniques:
"We feel confident that he will be confirmed.''
They should. Senate hasn't stood up to him yet!
A retired federal judge, Mukasey told the committee on Tuesday that the interrogation method known as waterboarding is "repugnant to me,'' and he pledged to study its legality if confirmed.
"If, after such a review, I determine that any technique is unlawful, I will not hesitate to so advise the president and will rescind or correct any legal opinion of the Department of Justice that supports the use of the technique,'' he wrote to the committee's 10 Democrats.
So what is truly with this stink, readers?
Incredibly, the Times actually tells us why today:
"Nominee’s Stand Avoiding Tangle of Torture Cases" by SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.
In other words PROTECTING the ILLEGAL TORTURE signed off on by THIS PRESIDENT!!!
On Wednesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday.
Votes on Tuesday, people.
The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique. Fear of opening the door to criminal or civil liability for torture or abuse, whether in an American court or in courts overseas, appeared to loom large in Mr. Mukasey’s calculations. Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
IMPEACH!!!!!!
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method. Any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
Centuries-old tactic, so it's accepted and O.K., isn't it, Times?
Human rights groups had filed a criminal complaint on torture against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, while he was visiting France this month. Such cases, based on the legal concept of “universal jurisdiction” for torture and certain other crimes, have proliferated in recent years, though they have often posed more of an aggravation than a serious threat.
Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, “The Terror Presidency,” that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration.
“I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators, acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment, would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.
Scott L. Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University School of Law, said any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding was illegal torture “would open up Pandora’s box,” even in the United States. Such a statement from an attorney general would override existing Justice Department legal opinions and create intense pressure from human rights groups to open a criminal investigation of interrogation practices, Mr. Silliman said.
“You would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it,” said Mr. Silliman, director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke. “Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that’s why he’ll never say it’s torture,” Mr. Silliman said of Mr. Mukasey.
And why Mukasey is ducking and dodging! IMPEACH!!!!
Specialists emphasized that prosecution in the United States, even under a future administration, would face huge hurdles because Congress since 2005 has adopted laws offering legal protections to interrogators for actions taken with government authorization. Justice Department legal opinions are believed to have approved waterboarding, among other harsh methods.
And the buzz is about Blackwater's immunity?
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Mukasey “is hedging in the interest of protecting current and former administration officials from possible prosecution,” either in other countries or by a future American administration.
Mr. Mukasey said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.
“I would not want any uninformed statement of mine made during a confirmation process to present our own professional interrogators in the field, who must perform their duty under the most stressful conditions, or those charged with reviewing their conduct,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, “with a perceived threat that any conduct of theirs, past or present, that was based on authorizations supported by the Department of Justice could place them in personal legal jeopardy.”
If the judiciary committee were to split along party lines, the deciding vote could go to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who first suggested Mr. Mukasey to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
Thanks, Chuckie!
Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered a fierce defense of Mr. Mukasey, who he said had spent “40 days in the partisan wilderness,” on the Senate floor. “What kind of crazy, topsy-turvy confirmation process is this?” Mr. Hatch asked.
Three Republicans who have denounced waterboarding wrote to Mr. Mukasey on Wednesday, suggesting that they would support him but urging him to declare waterboarding illegal after he is confirmed.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said anyone who engaged in waterboarding “puts himself at risk of prosecution, including under the War Crimes Act, and opens himself to civil liability as well.”
Then AmeriKa HAS TONS of WAR CRIMINALS OUT THERE!!!
With BUSH and CHENEY the TOP TWO TORTURERS!!!
I say WATERBOARD THEM and see how they like it!!
And Wolf tells me Bush just said if Mukasey is not confirmed, we are going to have another terror attack!!!!!!!!!!!
Says Bush INVOKED HITLER and LENIN in comparing to bin-Laden!
GOOD FUCKING CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!
UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!!!
