Mukasey assured the committee, however, that if confirmed he would "review any coercive interrogation techniques currently used by the United States Government and the legal analysis authorizing their use."

The use of that key word "current" slipped in later.

I covered this in my blog.

MUKASEY: I'm going to pledge to undertake to review the practices. I am going to pledge to consult people both inside and outside the department in the course of that.

Convening a formal process is something I can't commit to now. If it is necessary, and if I find that the results of inquiry and consultation don't yield a satisfactory result, I will consider that.

His original statements didn't include that helpful caveat.

he just said he wouldn't do anything that would give our adversaries (Democrats in Congress) a view of what we were doing. no brainer, impeach the Democratic Congress who confirmed him.

Listening to Mr. Mukasey's dry, emotionless testimony as to why torture really isn't torture, and if it is, it's still necessary, brought to mind Hannah Arendt's observation on the banality of evil.

The evildoers are just madmen cackling in caves. They're also upright, upstanding citizens, well-dressed and well-mannered, who nevertheless advocate the worst kind of evil in the gentlest of tones.

Isn't this exactly equivalent to saying, "The Department of Justice has no current practice of executing suspected bank robbers without trial, so it would be irresponsible of me to give an opinion as to whether such a practice would be illegal in the absence of a concrete situation"?

Mr. Mukasey, if the Iranian government captured one of our soldiers and, suspecting that there was an iminent threat to their nation, used waterboarding techniques on that soldier to extract information; would you advocate prosecuting Iranian authorities under the Geneva Convention or any other international law?

Follow-ups

If yes: Why then would the United States engage in such behavior?

If anything else including "no" or any sort of wishy-washy evasion: Why do you hate the troops?

If waterboarding is neither torture nor a punishment, but simply a nonviolent method of questioning an individual, and since Mukasey refuses to answer the Senate's questions on the matter, would he volunteer to be waterboarded in the Senate chambers until he comes up with answer?

If I was a Senator, that's what I'd ask.

Mukasey will be more than happy to answer all questions concerning Torture, Extraordinary Rendition, Secret American Prisons/Torture Chambers on Foreign Soil, Illegal Domestic Spying and Eavesdropping, Illegal War and Occupation of Iraq, and all the rest, as soon as Shrub and Darth are safely inside the borders of their Non-Extradition Retirement Countries of Choice.......

(It's a Neocon/Scumbag thing,....don't ask....)

Is this really very surprising? Anybody who has problems identifying what constitutes torture and needs to resort to nonsensical parsing about his awareness of techniques involved for an abominable practice made infamous so many centuries ago, is essentially a closeted torturer. Why else would Bush nominate him?

The issue here is not merely the focus on waterboarding or controlled drowning rather than torture itself but also that his nomination would not have passed muster without bipartisan support. The USA may have a Democratic WH and a Democratic Congress by 2009. Would anything really change? Neither HRC nor Obama would undertake the task of a clean sweep of the bureaucracy, including the CIA. The former would not risk it. The latter would preach to unite the torturers and would be torturers with his base.

So what sort of democracy is this?

What's all the fuss?

Mr. Mukasey is a high-priced lawyer for hire, paid to cover up torture and other high crimes and misdemeanors. That's his job.

Currently he's representing a man who ordered the rape of children in front of their mothers, among other crimes:

http://www.doublestandards.org/rajiva2.html#r3

And he has to. Because anyone who did order such a despicable crime would be liable to life imprisonment as a dangerous sex offender ... and who would Dick play with then?