No, but the two weeks of angry blogging will make interesting reading here at Salon.

I'm packing it in as a Democrat and changing to Independent. Fienstein is a wuss and I guess as immoral, if she backs a guy who won't say water boarding is torture. Anyone, anyone who thinks Bushit and his ilk would put a reasonable person into the position of A.G. has drank the cool aid. This country, I fear, is lost. It has gone to the dark side with giuliani as its next likely leader. Nauseating. Pure, unaltered nausea...

Looking at the Democratic strategies over the last few years, a clear approach becomes clear: don't fix things, complain about them. Since winning matters more to Democrats (and many of their voters) than anything that happens in the real world, they have no compunction to stop anything Bush does or wants to do, so long as the right people (e.g. candidates) can demagogue on those issues.

No doubt, the presidential candidates will talk about how they won't nominate someone like Mukasey and how they voted against him -- just like they oppose the war -- but they are fine with him getting approved, whatever the impact on law. By letting him through, they avoid any charges of "obstructionism" yet still have the issue to campaign on -- just like the war.

As long as we Democratic voters tolerate a weak party that triangulates so -- as long as we do not demand that Democrats lead -- they won't change. Why would they? They are a political party, which is akin to a sports team, and their job is to win games, not to change the world. We need to make changing the world a necessary step in winning games (in winning our votes).

Consider for a moment that no Democratic frontrunner has vowed to give up all the powers that Bush has claimed. None have vowed that we would not keep permanent bases in Iraq that maintain (perpetually?) low-grade warfare against "al Qaida in Iraq," whatever that means. Clinton actively supports this idea of permanent low-grade warfare and has even proposed to keep some of Bush's tax cuts for the super rich in place.

The Democrats should filibuster Mukasey. There are enough opposed to his nomination to do that. If they don't, they are choosing to let him through -- and will then complain about it while asking for our votes.

Since 2006, Republicans have filibustered more consistently than any other Congress in history, so if Democrats refuse to take that step through fears of charges of "obstructionism" then they should be swiftly condemned as pansies.

Can anyone defend the position that Republicans can filibuster to take healthcare away from children, but it would go to far to filibuster an Attorney General nominee who won't call "torture" an act that the US has prosecuted as torture in the past?

I can't recall the details of Gonzales's nomination hearings, but did he clearly refuse to rebuke torture in the way that Mukasey has here?

Isn't confirming Mukasey, with his refusal to acknowledge a clear example of torture, setting a dangerous precedent?

I realize it's fashionable these days to entertain the notion that torture is somehow acceptable and, even worse, efficacious.

If even one of the Democrats weren't so cowardly, they'd bring in a copy of Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and read the voluminous and savage accounts the author assembled detailing the techniques of the NKVD, and how they were used to obtain "confessions" from innocent people. This will never happen, of course.

Mukasey's confirmation would be a very public indicator that we in the U.S. have decided to travel down the same path of barbarism, and that we've left behind even the shame of it.

You forget that if the Republicans hold "chalk", Lieberman will vote with them. While he is in the democratic caucus, he is independent in name only. Of course if the vote came down to a fifty-fifty tie, the dark lord will roll in and extinguish the light.

The Democrats have no backbone. They will let Mukasey get through. The more time goes by, the less difference I see between Senate Democrats and Bush. Pretty sad.

Turn him down. Send him back to retirement.

There are plenty of qualified people in this country. Send him packing and suggest others that share American values, not Soviet ones.

Otherwise, see you in the Gulag.

Is there no Senator willing to exercise this tool, unique to the Senate, to derail - or at least sidetrack - this nomination until Mukasey gives a straight answer?

The fact that we're even having this discussion about Mukasey's nomination is a sorry testament to the moral dedradation of our country. To claim that he can't define waterboarding without knowing specific circumstances is a sure sign of Mukasey's moral turpitude.

Mukasey seems more motivated by pleasing his patrons (the Busheviks and the torturers) than he is motivated by any personal uncertainty about waterboarding. If his inability to give a straight answer was based in his uncertainty, why doesn't he just say so? Why? Because he's lying to try to protect the interrogators and their willing accomplices (Bush and Cheney et al) from future legal jeopardy.

Mukasey needs to be rejected in Judiciary, before his nomination gets to the full Senate. Contact the members of the Judiciary and your own Senators and tell them if they don't take a stand to stop this nomination in its tracks, they will no longer have any place to hide the shame of their monumental moral failure.

Since when has the war-profiteering Feinstein ever wobbled? She's up to her pearl-wrapped neck in Bush administration graft. What's good enough for King George is good enough for Princess Dianne.

Are you sure Democratic politicians are against torture, telecom amnesty, the war, etc., or are they just trying to make us believe they are?

I'm thinking it's the latter.

Both parties are funded by the same people (the powerful moneyed interests who really run this country).

BTW: I'm not a fan of the war-mongering Mrs. Clinton, but her election would bring the GOP (and their 24%ers) over to the "anti" position on all of these issues.

Call that the "silver lining in the dark cloud".