Senator Whitehouse is Right: A Vote For Mukasey is a Vote for Torture

Any Senator who votes to confirm Michael Mukasey as George Bush's new Attorney General is voting in favor of torture.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor and one of the best of the class elected to the Senate in 2006, eloquently asked the simple question on the Senate floor yesterday: "Whence cometh our strength as a nation?"

"Our strength comes from the fact that we stand for something. Our strength comes from the aspirations of millions around the globe who want to be like us, who want their country to be like ours. Our strength comes when we embody the hopes and dreams of mankind."

Senator Whitehouse then went on to ask: "Will we trust our ideals?" Or "will we join that gloomy historical line leading from the Inquisition, through the prisons of tyrant regimes, through the gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein's torture chambers? Will that be the path we choose?"

Unfortunately, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have already chosen the path through the darkness of which Senator Whitehouse speaks.

The question now is whether Senators from both political parties have the moral conscience and the will to stand up to an Administration that is determined to flout the rule of law and has already set our nation back decades in its relations to the rest of the world. Stubbornly holding on to the "right" of federal employees or contractors to torture people graphically symbolizes just how far we've descended as a nation under George Bush's rule.

The Constitution clearly grants the Senate the power to reject appointments made by the President. This president has shown contempt for the law and for the American people in a million different ways. He's dragged our name through the mud these past six years and with Mukasey as Attorney General he will continue to do so.

If Senators Charles Schumer or John McCain or others vote to confirm this crafty lawyer who advocates torture and an expansive Executive Branch that ignores the laws passed by Congress, then we have not moved one inch as a country since the 2006 elections.

If Mukasey is confirmed the Democrats have failed in their number one mission the American people charged them with in 2006: Reel in the Executive Branch and begin to repair the damage to our name and image that Bush's insistence on torture, secret prisons, and the suspension of habeas corpus as wrought.

If the Democrats fail on this score the 2006 elections were meaningless and they all should be held accountable. Watch the Senators who are presidential candidates like a hawk!

Comments

[Macready]

Great blog . . . a vote for mukaskey is definitely a vote for torture . . . he must not be confirmed as Attorney General . . . further Congress has to impeach those responsible for authorising the torture . . . the buck stops at the WH . . . cheney first . . . every day impeachment is off the agenda is another blow to the democracy and values America is supposed to uphold . . . if Congress cannot act on this they are as guilty of torture as the bush/cheney regime and do not deserve our votes.

[zasu]

I agree with you entirely, Joseph. Mr. Mukasey is not deserving of the office to which the president has nominated him. The very fact that he is willing to obfuscate and manipulate his response to a very clear question about torture, indicates to me that, in his own way, he will be as bad as Alberto Gonzalez

[OrvilleHLarson]

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota: I'm not asking you, I'm TELLING you, to vote against Mukasey.

[chouwalker]

The senate should not confirm this nominee. e-mail your senators and tell them so.

Torture is wrong. Waterboarding is torture.

Mr Mukasey's equivocating answers in the confirmation hearing have demonstated he does not understand this basic concpet and is not worthy to be attorney general.

I am disgusted and dismayed at how far America has fallen relative to its own ideals. I am ashamed and embarrassed at what this country has done under the Bush administration.

[Curedlib]

I'm sorry, Joe, but I read your piece twice and I still missed the part where you explain how Mukasey supports torture. That IS your thesis, isn't it?

Or is it just an excuse to say Bush lied people died one more time?

[Lt]

impeach now

cut the funding now

halt all the nominee process now

[syllepsis]

I think a key question will be facing the Democratic party in the coming months: Will it be the party of Schumer, who brought this equivocating, torture-mongering hack on "board," or will it be the party of Whitehouse, who spoke so eloquently, and correctly, about the dangers of going down the path "through the gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein's torture chambers?"
Senator Whitehouse has shown, in his words, how great this country can be if it honors its own ideals. I wish his party were worthy of him. Certainly, if it isn't, then the Democratic party is not worthy of the American people.

[RabbiOmar]

In 2004, Gary Trudeau recalled in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine that when they were both Yale students, George W. Bush was accused of branding frat pledges with an iron and burning cigarettes on their arms. W still seems to employ torture. Waterboarding is torture and against the values that America has traditionally stands for. Any nominee for attorney general must unambiguously recognize and denounce torture. Mukasey has failed to do this and must be rejected. THOSE AMERICAN LEADERS WHO AUTHORIZE AND PROMOTE TORTURE MUST BE CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED