“If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, they would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general,” Bush said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“That would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war,” the president said.
I dunno, at this point no Attorney General is just fine with me.
For me, Bush’s comments show an apparent disconnect from reality that has gone from ridiculous to scary. Mukasey of course cannot come out and say that waterboarding is torture (even though the US has in the past) because then various Bush administration officials (including Cheney, I’m sure, and maybe even Bushie himself) would be open to prosection for war crimes. And wouldn’t that be delicious.
It seems pretty clear that if the US prosecuted waterboarding as torture before, nothing has changed. I so hope Mukasey, and every other nominee who refuses to call it torture, goes down in flames.