Ed Morrisey put it simply:

Instead of appointing Ted Olson, the apparent first choice of the White House, Schumer pushed for Mukasey as a "consensus candidate" -- and won.

If the Democrats had left it at that, they could have claimed a significant victory over the White House. Instead, they engaged in a fruitless colloquy over whether waterboarding was illegal -- when Congress has the power to make it explicitly illegal at any time. Not only did that irony escape them, but towards the end of the debate, the White House announced that only three detainees had ever been waterboarded, and the practice was forbidden after 2003 in any case.

Leading Democrats demanded the withdrawal of Mukasey anyway. All of the Democratic presidential candidates insisted on it. The Bush administration made clear that the AG post would get filled in the recess if Mukasey didn't win confirmation, and likely by someone a lot less palatable than Mukasey. Schumer, who pushed Mukasey in the first place, had to find a wingman in Feinstein to get the Democrats out of the large hole in which he'd placed them.

Instead of looking like they control the appointment process, this exercise just confirms for the Democratic Party base that their Congress has assumed a mostly-supine position vis-a-vis George Bush. What an absurd piece of political theater. As Casey Stengel once said of the Mets, can't anyone in the Senate Democratic caucus play this game?

for America if the people elected to represent, and they are called representatives, the people don't or won't do their jobs, where you just do what will get you pork, while pandering to your base, you are nothing more than cowards of the worst kind, because you were elected to make a difference, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES.

Look at the people of Burma and Pakistan, no arms to bear, no money, no hope in so many cases, but they take to the streets, in Pakistan it's the lawyers, how ironic, can you see an American lawyer protesting on the st never.

Luke 11:46 - "Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers"

What amazes me and millions of others is why are we evening having this conversation.

I'm really surprised you didn't focus your column on Dianne Feinstein. Schumer is in a political box, but not Feinstein.

Guess who was a guest on Air Force One when Bush came out to see the fires? And gushed about the one-on-one time with the president, and how she came away with a really positive impression of him.

If you're looking for a sellout senator, think locally.

It may be that Chuck Schumer feels some antiquated obligation to the old Senate tradition that you, if no one else, vote for the guy you sponsor. It may be that he was hoping, like a barroom bully, that someone would "hold him back" and thereby prevent him from having to walk the walk implied by his talk. None of these seem implausible, but I don't know Schumer very well. Maybe people who have followed him more closely can say.

What I do know is that California progressives have been complaining about Feinstein for longer than I've been one of her constituents, and yet nobody has been willing to leverage that discontent to chase her out of office. Part of that may be pragmatism — she may be the most liberal Democrat to whom California Republicans are willing to tacitly accede, and this sort of thing is just the inevitable fallout of such compromises.

But if so, what other outcome can one reasonably expect if one agrees to making deals like that? I'm disturbed by the convenient amnesia of American liberals who are acting as though their elected representatives' lack of inspiration and imagination have only suddenly become apparent, or at least salient.

I suspect what's happened in New York is similar to California. It's not like we're talking about North Dakota — there's a superabundance of progressive political talent and resources in both states, despite the heavy counterweight of up-country suburban conservatism. You all pretty much had the party you wanted, and now you want a different one.

Now you want a different one.

Okay, that's great, change is good and it won't come too soon, but let's not go crazy trying to figure out whether Schumer or Feinstein or anyone else is cloistered or lame or both or something else altogether. We ought to already know — we've had all the time in the world to find out.

Perhaps what Joan Walsh ought to be asking is how all those irresponsible hippie beatnik types ("unserious" as Glenn Greenwald likes to put it) among her fellow Californians, who have openly voiced their distaste for Feinstein for so long, could have been right and yet remained invisible.

That, Editor, is a question I would love to see your magazine explore in depth. Salon has the talent and the means to do so — what it may lack is the courage to accept the initial premise of any such investigation, which is that despite its attachment to the moderate, "informed" stance of the past decade, Salon (and the liberal mainstream) ought to have known better.

It appears many of you believe there is no difference between the GOP and the Democratic Party. What planet are we talking about here? Not this one. Because most of the illegality and abuses of this administration occurred on their watch. And not only did they do nothing, they facilitated it and actually impeded any attempts to investigate any of it. Americans are noted for their short attention spans but, come on, this was just a couple of years ago.

Many of you seem to believe that for a Democratic politician to get your support they must agree with everything you believe. Maybe some of you do belong in the GOP then. I realize they don’t represent just me, they represent their constituency and their country. Sometimes they act in much different ways than I would like. But to say I’m going to abandon my principles, my integrity, and my reason, because I disagree sometimes would be foolish and counterproductive.

Where is the nominee that will say his putative boss broke the law? Which crony is going to prosecute Bush and his henchmen? There ain’t one folks. I realize how angry people are about this, and I am too, but there is fantasy and there is the real world. In the real world you compromise and sometimes hold your nose while doing it.

Anyway the reason for apparent Democratic timidity and acquiescence is Bush has dirt on all of them. He is the modern day J. Edgar Hoover. It seems obvious that someone who disregards the law and the Constitution as much as Bush does would stoop to anything to get his way and further his aims. He unleashed the NSA not just on us but on Congress as well. It’s blackmail pure and simple.

So before any of you change your registration, or reflexively dismiss Democratic candidates next year, think long and hard about it. Imagine how bad it would be now if the GOP still had control of Congress. For one example, they probably would not only not hold the telcos to account, they would have asked the Justice Department to prosecute the NYT for letting us know!

I just don’t get it………there is a difference. Just listen to their presidential candidates and tell me we would be better off if they had complete control again. Vote GOP and abandon all hope for our Constitution and our democracy.