I view this as a problem of Mukasey's independence from the White House. And it serves as an indicator of whether Mukasey would use his position as Attorney General to run interference for the White House and serve as a member of the President's political team ... rather than representing the government as a whole.

The question of whether waterboarding constitutes "torture" under U.S. law is not really complicated, no matter how much hemming and hawing and chin-pulling these clowns do. There aren't permissible degrees of waterboarding before it BECOMES torture. There is no "lite" version that rehabilitates it. It is just flat-out torture. That's the case under the Geneva Convention (which we signed, and which is part of the laws that Mukasey would be in charge of enforcing). And it has been prosecuted as a war crime and human rights abuse (when it was done by the Japanese during World War II, among other things).

So ... this dance that Mukasey is doing before the Senate of "gee, I really haven't thought of that" or "gosh, torture? That would really depend what your definition is" is very disheartening. Mukasey is already pushing the administration's bizarre self-definition of what constitutes "torture" and what doesn't -- i.e., it is very complicated, depends on lots of subjective factors, and depends on whether it actually COULD lead to death as opposed to extreme but momentary discomfort ... all that Orwellian B.S. that hides the truth in plain sight.

And Mukasey is also playing the nya-nya-not-going-to-answer-your-question game with Congress. That's bad.

This is the same contemptuous song and dance that Alberto Gonzalez used over and over again, and it suggests that Mukasey would just be a more sophisticated version of the same old thing as his predecessor -- on this and other issues.

So letting this nomination go through will not necessary speed the rehabilitation of the Department of Justice.

And this can of worms NEEDS to be opened. Because it goes to the heart of what the office of Attorney General represents. Are you going to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed, or are you going to help the President evade the laws as do as he sees fit and finds convenient? Can the President unilaterally declare himself to be above the law and nullify the laws and treaties he finds inconvenient? Are we a nation of laws at all?

-- Bokonon