Cagey Mukasey
Michael Mukasey, who replaced Gonzales as our top Justice guy, is afraid to admit that waterboarding is torture. And he wends and weaves his way through a legal labyrinthe of his own construction in order to confuse senators and the rest of us. Cagey Mukasey will not say whether he thinks waterboarding is legal. How should he know? When asked at a senate hearing whether waterboarding is torture, he said: If this were an easy question, I would not be reluctant to offer my views on this subject. But, with respect, I believe it is not an easy question. There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit the use of waterboarding. Other circumstances would present a far closer question. Would you believe that the head of the Justice Department would say such a thing? He was asked whether he would call waterboarding torture if it were done on him and he said Yes. So he is sure it is torture for him but not for others. What does this mean? He followed that up with more tortured statements about torture too ridiculous to bother quoting. If the top legal guy cannot tell use what is torture and whether it is legal or not, who can? Evidently, Mukasey is playing around with the senate. He has no choice if he wants to keep his job. Once he defines waterboarding as torture, he is fired. So he goes about beating around the Bush. Regardless of what the senate does, Mukasey will stay cagey, and our system of justice will suffer. Only a change to a Democratic Administration will clean out our corrupt Justice Department.
