Mukasey Not Likely to be Confirmed

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Mukasey nomination has bypassed surreal and moved on to ridiculous.

Probably sucks to be Senator Schumer right now.

The nomination is in real jeopardy. Pat Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he will not support the nominee. It is starting to look unlikely that the nomination will even make it out of committee.

It's all about the torture. He won't go on record that waterboarding is torture. (Nah, it's just a dunk in the water. No big deal. That's why it's sanctioned in international law...oh...wait...)

Waterboarding is a war crime because it's torture. His refusal to state it doesn't mean it isn't.

Frankly, his equivocating tortures logic.

It isn't like we are stupid. He can't go on record because it has been used, and he would then be obligated, should he be confirmed, to prosecute the perpetrators as the war criminals they are. Hell, that obligation to prosecute could go all the way to the executive, and the pResident himself.

For his part, Bush seems to be getting increasingly unhinged, demanding the Senate apporve his nominee, and at one point insisting that if it wasn't Mukasey, well, he would show us! We just won't have an Attorney General! (Geez...Fourth grade much?) His latest excuse for Mukasey's equivocation is that he [Mukasey] has not been briefed.

Leahy didn't bite. “No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture.”

The L.A. Times reported today on speculation that Bush might use a recess appointment to install Mukasey at Justice over the upcoming holiday break.

Probably so. Wouldn't put it past the sonofabitch for a hot second, but there is an easy way to thwart that possibility, and they damn well know it!

Don't officially call a recess.

A couple of Dems need to stay behind in Washington. Call the Senate to order every day of the scheduled recess, even without a quorum. I realize that this is the same party that was in a big toot to get their vacations started in August, so they caved on FISA, but damnit! Read the freakin' Jefferson's Manual! Mikulski and Webb live in close enough proximity to the Hill to employ the tactic and not even be greatly inconvenienced.

For every parliamentary maneuver, there is a parliamentary check. And if we don't have Democrats who know how this god-damned game is played, then we need some new god-damned Democrats.