Letters to the Editor
casual_observer
Published Letters: 1359 Editor's Choice: 1
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Gould @ constitution
[Read the article: Mukasey's nomination and the sudden opposition to "waterboarding"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mukasey's refusal to say that the President is bound by statute - i.e., by the law - strikes at the heart of the Constitution, and is far more dangerous than his failure to classify waterboarding as torture, deplorable as that is. Yet we're not hearing a peep from Democrats about that issue.
I noted that response also. It seemed to me that Mukasey was essentially saying that, if the executive decided that a statute was unconstitutional (i.e. was passed by congress and signed by a president, but in this president's opinion was inconsistent with the president's article II powers), then the president would be acting lawfully to ignore the statute. Just ignore it.
If this is indeed what Mukasey meant, that is an extraordinary statement for a presumptive AG.
It was Leahy who was getting Mukasey on record on this subject, and he did so rather methodically and without much emotion. As with many such SJC hearings, one wonders when, if ever, the committee is actually going to act on any of these bizarre and just plain batty interpretations of what the executive branch can and can't do. It seems the president and his men and women can regularly call congress's bluff time after time, and the congress does nothing.
So what good are the hearings? Are they simply political theater, as the GOP claims? Will the only substative contribution from these hearings be in the formation of a record that historians can use 50 years from now?
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Svensker
[Read the article: Mukasey's nomination and the sudden opposition to "waterboarding"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let the AG position sit vacant. It will take another year for the stench of Gonzales to leave the desk anyway. Let the field go fallow until the next president.
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Mukasey = Addington?
[Read the article: Mukasey's nomination and the sudden opposition to "waterboarding"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One interpretation I've seen is that Addington's heavy hand can be seen in all the rediculous fudging and definitional contortions that Mukasey has been going through. This makes sense to me.
Since it is Mukasey's stated and written opinion that the Executive is very very powerful, constitutionally, in a "time of war", it is perhaps unsurprising that he is taking direction so completely from WH staff. So while he may have been quite independent as a judge, he is now simply exhibiting the behavior of a potential employee who is pre-conditioned to comply with all the wishes of his new boss.
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Paul @ sadist training
[Read the article: Mukasey's nomination and the sudden opposition to "waterboarding"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe two classes of sadist. One, the military and intelligence personel who will torture us. Two, the private mercenaries who will machine-gun us if we get too close to them in traffic.
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re: Update
[Read the article: Mukasey's nomination and the sudden opposition to "waterboarding"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A Texas phrase comes to mind, unbidden--"We can't win, for losing". It's used to characterize a long string of losses, snafus, fubars, in which the only consistent thing is that you lose and keep losing and don't see how you'll ever win again.
This is yet another painful and harmful loss for the country. In contrast, I don't believe that the Senate--collectively or as individuals--views this as a loss. It's just business. Sometimes a vote goes one way, sometimes another, but there is little pain, little anguish, and no meaningful consequence. Why is there no consequence? Because there is only one consequence for the Democrats. It is called November '08. Mukasey's approval is Nov. '08-nuetral. Mukasey's rejection, on the other hand, is risky and might come into play. In short, the Democrats are "overly politicized".
Just another example of how the senate is disembedded [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=192915] from the country. The concept of "disembedded capital" is overly rigid and imperfect, but I think it has some utility when viewing washington these days.
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Ellison's voice in the wilderness
[Read the article: Only America-hating traitors believe in due process for journalists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ellison will remain an exceptional lonely voice in the House, and will remain the butt of completely insane speculation by the likes of Beck. This is because a controlling majority of the congress--republican and democratic alike, have no more respect for process and the rule of law than does this administration.
I have finally received a reply from my liberal congressman regarding impeachment, and I believe it illustrates the world our lawmakers inhabit today. He wrote:
But on the question of how best to deal with this wrongdoing, I agree with my friend, Rep. Barney Frank who said, "In an ironic way it [impeachment] does George Bush a favor. He is losing the national debate on most issues, he is losing support among Republicans, and impeachment would almost certainly allow him to rally lots of Republicans." Impeachment certainly satisfies our shared desire to repudiate all that disgusts us about this Administration, but I believe this is not the way to allocate our limited resources and narrow majority in the final year of Bush-Cheney.
Issues of torture, rendition, abrogation of treaties, abridgment of constitutional rights are not issues of law and process. They are elements of political debate. If you are the unfortunate one who happens to be locked up in Gitmo, that's your problem. But know that your illegal torture and incarceration are helping the democrats to "win the debate, and that you are helping the congress to wisely "allocate their limited resources".
Limited resources indeed. So limited one can't help but wonder if they exist.
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hopeless @ mukasey
[Read the article: Only America-hating traitors believe in due process for journalists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Please write about Feinstein and Schumer's move to annoint Mukasey!"
Why?
"It seems almost cynically timed to crush the Liberal hopes and energy, much the same way the neoCONs have been doing for the past seven years."
Feinstin's simply following pattern. Did anyone who has been following her votes really think she'd vote against him? And Shumer came out early for him. Did anyone really think Shumer would recommend him early, then vote against him?
Hope is good. Hope is essential. But one needs to guard against unreasonable hopes. And it is unreasonable to hope that this SJC would vote against him, unless he did something really horrible at a hearing. Such as devour a live infant. I mean a real american infant. A white one. Or beat Robert Byrd's little dawg.