Michael Mukasey has insulted the United States Senate once again. When asked by Senators whether he will consider, as Attorney General, the horrific act of waterboarding to be a form of torture, Mukasey has refused to answer over and over again – three times now, by my count.
Mukasey’s latest refusal to answer the question comes in this form: Mukasey says he will decide whether to count waterboarding as torture after the United States Senate confirms him as Attorney General. Then he’ll let the Senate know the answer to the question.
That’s an answer in itself. It’s clear that Michael Mukasey intends to continue the practice of torturing prisoners by waterboarding, authorizing the torture, and claiming that it doesn’t break the many laws against torture, merely by declaring that waterboarding is, in fact, not torture.
That’s like saying that decapitation is not murder, and then saying that, while the government may chop people’s heads off, it does not murder.
George W. Bush’s pick for Attorney General has, in effect, declared that he intends to help the President continue to break the law.
Michael Mukasey must not be confirmed as Attorney General.
George W. Bush must be impeached.