Mukasey On Waterboarding: 'I Would Feel That It Was Torture If It Were Done To Me'

Think Progress:

In today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey whether waterboarding is torture. "Would waterboarding be torture if it were done to you?" "I would feel that it was," said Mukasey. He then continued to dodge the question on whether the procedure is illegal by going on a tangent and citing Cicero. Watch it:

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Comments

[ultomatt]

By the way, his name is pronounced like he was a hip hop star...Mucus E. And if you were wondering, that's because of the inch thick layer of slime covering him from head to toe.

Everyone gets R'pignican's names wrong, like John Boehner...it's pronounced BONER!! He'd make an excellent spokesman for Viagra...kind of like Bob Dole was for ED (Explosive Diarrhea).

[ftprairiedog]

Once again the scumbag Democrats have sold us out.
Cindy Sheehan for Congress.
cindyforco­ngress.org­.
End the one party system.

[Not Blind]

Shermer and Feinstein BOTH had a hand in endorsing Mukasey's nomination. As a Californian, I will not forget or vote for her or anyone she's close to again. In fact, Pelosi and Reid are another two without spines and willing to do anything to accomodate and enable this administration's destruction of our Constitution, morality, ethics, decency and perpetuate our rogue status as a nation which embraces torture, lawless surveillance upon its citizens, massive fraud, incompetence, corruption, secrecy and deception. We're no better than those Banana Republics and terrorist groups we say we're fighting. I fear my own government more than anyone or anything else at this point.
When all is said and done, Cheney will walk away with his billions (Halliburton), Bush will get his kick-backs from Blackwater and his own investments in Hunt Oil, with their full pensions, perpetual healthcare, while we pay the tab ($9.35 trillion) for generations to come, and live in a precarious environment.

[LITU]

I listened to the hearings. What the hell did Schumer expect from the bastard when he approved his nomination?

Lawyers always think they're the cleverest people on board, but history shows otherwise.

It's debatable what the Bard meant when he wrote, "The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers," but he had it right

[BeamMeUpScotty]

Mukasey's unwillingness to go "on the record" about waterboarding is called contempt of Congress and the punishment is up to one year in jail.

Where are the Democrat's balls?

[forebode]

Waterboarding is too nice of a thing to do to Mikasy, Bush, and Cheney. It should just be a prelude to a really nasty, painful, harrowing, unpleasant surprise to them and everyone else among the powers that be who think it is OK to send poor and middle-class kids to Iraq, but think their kids are too good, too blue-blood to have to go face the possibility of being killed or maimed in Iraq. It is We The People who should subject these nazis to what they think is torture if it is done to them but not to others. They need to be taught a painful lesson about their arrogance and self-conceit. Whatever it takes.

[traveler501]

This guy changes his opinion too often. I'm not prepared to accept this answer. I say we try it out on him to make sure...and then on Cheney and W. Let's face it...inquiring minds want to know!

[Rog49Thomas]

I remember a time when secure in the innate moral superiority of our American “way”, I would have looked down upon and derided a foreign official who made comments similar to those of our apparently ethically obtuse Attorney General. And rountinely roundly condemned regimes that practiced human rights abuses.

I also remember nodding along in earnest approval as our government lectured some banana republic on fiscal rectitude as well as savoring the eventual “divine” retribution of the markets in pummeling their currency.

I never thought that I’d live to see the day that we joined the illustrious ranks of the third world – intellectually, morally, and soon it seems financially.

The profoundly sad part is that our position was not wrested from our hands by some foreign power, but that we voluntarily let it slip away.focused no doubt on what I guess are other more important matters. What are Paris and Britney up to these days?

[Harrier]

How would he know. He's took chicken to try it

[IMPRISONBUSH]

IF A DEM TAKES OFFICE IN 08 WILL HR / SHE CLEAN OUT OR CHARGE THE PEOPLE WHO LIED AND COMITED CRIMES AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE , OR WILL THEY BE GIVEN MEDALS ?

MAYBE THE ATTERNY GENERAL SHOULD BE WATER BOARDED TO GET REATION.

[jbcowan]

Where in Hell does Bush find these guys ?

First Asscroft, then "IDon'tRecall" Gonzales, and now "YouAskingMe" Mukaskey...
Surely there's a damn lawyer in America who understands that "WaterBoarding" IS TORTURE !

[Dendy]

Please look at this new video of Hillary Clinton.
It’s a rear look at someone that is so often portrait as cold and calculated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8frN4Rou_s

Hillary 08

[ConcernAmerican]

This is the kind of people we have in the Bush Administration. Are you still wondering why some terrorist out there wanted to attack us?

If you feel you what the republican party has done is not enough, vote for a Republican candidate this November.I think our country is now manned by a bunch of Hannibal Leichter, they wanted to export killings but they hate it when killings enter our country.

USA can't claim a high moral ground when our leaders are no different than the people we despise. We went down to their level, Mukasey is a good example of that.

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

I think all members of the administration who condone methods such as waterboarding and harsh interrogation techniques of the CIA, should be forced to personally experience every one of those techniques in order to authorize them.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866

[Danny]

Mukasey has to answer this way (equivocate) because if he admits that waterboarding (water torture) IS torture his bosses will have to go to jail. So Mukasey is dancing around, and not answering the question. Thanks to Senator Kennedy, and others, for keeping up the indispensable pressure.