OT--but important.

I swear earlier in the day I saw a story quoting Harry Reid as saying it could be next month before there is a vote on Mukasey.

Wrong! Check CSPAN2. They're debating Mukasey now on the floor and it sounds like they are planning a vote in less than an hour.

Schumer used 15 minutes of the Republican time to try to explain himself. Not very convincing.

Boxer's statement was awesome. I'll try to get the transcript tomorrow.

Crap. While I was looking for the link to the story on delaying a vote, Lindsey Graham started speaking in favor of Mukasey. I thought there was a chance he would oppose.

The latest version of Laurie Kellman's story on Mukasey, which she has updated several times today, mentions the threat from Reid:The debate came after a tense day of negotiations that at one point featured Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to postpone Mukasey's confirmation until December.

On an interesting note, she has finally cleaned up the language about the legality of waterboarding:

Waterboarding, used by interrogators to make someone feel as if he is going to drown, is banned by domestic law and international treaties. But U.S. law applies to Pentagon personnel and not the CIA. The administration won't say whether it has allowed the agency's employees to use it against terror detainees.

This is at least a little more honest than what she said earlier in the day, as I noted in an earlier comment.

http://tinyurl.com/yo7dmm

In light of yesterday's post, I couldn't resist that title.

In his disgusting defense of Mukasey and why the Senate should confirm him, Schumer kept pointing out how "independent" Mukasey would be and how Mukasey would "stand up" to the President. He failed to mention how this could be the case if Mukasey was resorting to Gonzales-like obfuscation on waterboarding. That is, we already know Mukasey will give in to Bush's authoritarianism. How does that make him better than Gonzales? If he caves on torture before confirmation, you can bet he'll cave on everything else now that he is confirmed.

On another front, someone needs to dig into just how this vote was rushed to the floor. The WaPo only states:The late-night tally was thrown together unexpectedly after daylong negotiations between GOP and Democratic leaders. This is really stinky, since none of the Democratic Senators campaigning for President were present, and most if not all had already said they would vote no. It also would have been very useful for McCain to be present for the debate and vote. Since Reid himself was against confirmation, why didn't he make sure there was a cloture vote?

Finally, in my opinion, we now have an additional 53 defendants when the war crimes trials begin. Everyone who voted for Mukasey did so as an acknowledgement of, and in approval of, torture as the official policy of the US Government. I have never been so ashamed to be an American.

From the transcript of Senator Specter's comments last night:

The ways of the Senate are wondrous. It is hard to figure out--we had our last vote at 11:45 and finished shortly after noon and could have started this debating process early in the afternoon. But, as I say, in the wondrous ways of the Senate, we could not begin it until 7 o'clock, until we had reached an agreement on procedural details, which might well have been done earlier. But I have been here a while, and I learned a long time ago the Senate is a lot smarter than I am, and we follow--we play the cards we are dealt.

/snip/

Now, I do believe there were reasons Judge Mukasey did not express a judgment on waterboarding as being torture, although candidly it would have been my preference if he had done so and if he had agreed with my vote on the subject. But, Judge Mukasey said in written responses that he believed he could not make that pronouncement without placing people at risk to be sued or perhaps even criminally prosecuted. A few weeks ago, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was in Paris at a time when people sought legal process against him. It was unclear whether it was a criminal procedure or a civil procedure, but we do know that many nations are exercising extraterritorial jurisdiction when they may consider conduct to be a violation of the law against humanity.

We know, for example, that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon was indicted, I believe it was in Belgium. They couldn't serve the warrant, but had he gone to Belgium. He would have been subject to that process. We know the case of Pinochet from Chile where extraterritorialjurisdiction was sought as to him. So this is a matter of some considerable import.

Professor Goldsmith wrote, speaking from his experience as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, that members of the administration had expressed concerns that they might be subject to civil liability or even criminal liability if it was later determined that some of their conduct was illegal. So, Judge Mukasey faced a situation where an expression of an opinion by him would put people at risk.

http://tinyurl.com/ysnwx5

Yep, Specter can accurately place us up there with Pinochet and others, but still votes to continue the practice. Disgusting.

But more importantly, Mukasey admitted in writing that he would not declare waterboarding torture because he knew it would make members of the Administration criminally liable. Protecting Bush is simply more important than preventing crimes against humanity.

As jayackroyd pointed out, impeachment is the only solution to this problem.

If you have shooters, go ahead and bite them too.

Close, but not quite.

Shooter, read my shirt.

http://www.bitemelivebait.com/97_polo.html

I have the blue one, and I'm wearing it today.