Mukasey: I Can’t Say Whether Flaying Someone Is Torture

AG Mukasey must be better than Gonzalez was, but this is really stupid:

“Given that waterboarding is not part of the current program and may never be added to the current program, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to pass definitive judgment on the technique’s legality,” the attorney general said, speaking in the cautious way that his Senate questioners have sometimes found evasive and infuriating.

The anger of some committee members was further stoked on Tuesday evening, when in a letter to the panel Mr. Mukasey said that waterboarding was not clearly illegal and that perhaps it could be used again against terrorism suspects if requested by the White House.

Let’s see, cutting people’s fingers off, searing someone with a red-hot iron poker, boiling one alive, and many other things are not part of the current program–does he think he shouldn’t pass judgement on them also? What if it happens to a US citizen in another country? The extra stupidity is that US officials HAVE used waterboarding–wouldn’t it make sense to say if they committed an illegal act, since torture is illegal. In terms of whether it is torture, Senator Leahy gives the obvious response:

Mr. Leahy was contemptuous of that stand. “Never mind that we prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding Americans during World War II,” he said. “Never mind that this is the practice of repressive regimes around the world.”

And that doesn’t include the fact that the Army says it’s torture which may be Tom Ridge and Mike McConnell agree that it’s torture. I understand that Mukasey would have a hard time saying waterboarding is torture because that would mean people in the CIA and elsewhere should be prosecuted, but really couldn’t he at least take the trouble to think up something that made sense?

The article also has one bit of good journalism:

But a committee Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, came to the defense of the attorney general and the administration, saying that it was “an embarrassment” that the questions might create an impression that American interrogators have often engaged in waterboarding.

“That is not true,” Mr. Sessions said. The administration has confirmed that the technique was used on a few suspected Al Qaeda figures captured after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

See, is that so hard? Sessions says something that is obviously not true and the reporter notes that what Sessions said is not true.

Who’s Left?

Hmm, both Giuliani and Edwards are now probably out–as are Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich, Fred Thompson, Hunter, and Tancredo. We’re left with:

Democrats: Clinton, Obama, (Gravel -I haven’t officially heard he’s out, not that it matters);

Republicans: McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Paul.

It looks to be a two person race for both parties–this is obvious for the Democrats; for the Republicans, Huckabee could win a few more states but I don’t think much more than that and Paul will continue to get his 5-15% (in fact he has gone below 5% in the last two states).

Now I have to decide who to vote for. It will be a Democrat, but which of the two (I like some of the positions of Gravel, who supports gay marriage and wants to decrease defense spending, but not in others, he wants a flat tax, and since he is a marginal candidate he’s out)? My primary is February 5, so I have to decide soon but there’s not much space between the two. I suppose I could still vote for my higher choices even though they’re out (Kucinich, Dodd)–I assume they’ll still be on the ballot. Hmmm, anyone in MA still planning on voting for a candidate that is officially out?

Arlo Guthrie and Ron Paul

My respect for Arlo Guthrie has gone down, as he has now endorsed Ron Paul. It doesn’t mean I will now not like his music, I can and do separate the art and the artist, but it does mean I will respect him less as a person. I’m not sure Woody would like it, since he was very far left politically.

An interesting bit, here’s Woody on the copright of ‘This Land is Your Land’:

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

Signing Statements

In his state of the union, Bush said he wanted to work in a bipartisan way. It didn’t take him long to drop that, as he issued four signing statements to a bill Monday. If he wanted to act in a bipartisan way, he would have talked to the Congress before the bill was passed and discussed his objections–he didn’t. He also didn’t do the straightforward thing of vetoing the bill, because that would allow Congress to override. As usual, the signings were about executive power–they state that the bills infringe on his power as President, as if it’s up to him to decide the constitutionality of a bill. Oh yeah, what did he object to?

One section Bush targeted created a statute that forbids spending taxpayer money “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq” or “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”

…

The signing statement also targeted a provision in the defense bill that strengthens protections for whistle-blowers working for companies that hold government contracts. The new law expands employees’ ability to disclose wrongdoing without being fired, and it gives greater responsibility to federal inspectors general to investigate complaints of retaliation.

In addition, Bush targeted a section that requires intelligence agencies to turn over “any existing intelligence assessment, report, estimate or legal opinion” requested by the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees within 45 days. If the president wants to assert executive privilege to deny the request, the law says, White House counsel must do so in writing.

Finally, Bush’s signing statement raised constitutional questions about a section of the bill that established an independent, bipartisan “Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan” to investigate allegations of waste, mismanagement, and excessive force by contractors.

He didn’t bother to explain why or how these sections were problematic, that would be what he would do if he had a problem only with the constitutionality of the bill–it would help Congress to pass a similar bill that he thought was ok. He didn’t, because he isn’t really for bipartisanship. What he means by bipartisan is ‘you agree with me’. He knows that there is little possibility of that here, so he doesn’t bother talking to Congress.