Mukasey Moves Forward
The San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, November 8, 2007
By: Editorial
With the approval of two stalwart Democrats - Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York - the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Michael Mukasey's nomination for attorney general. Fellow Democrats have leveled much criticism at these two senators for their decision, since Mukasey has refused to label what he calls the "repugnant" practice of waterboarding as torture. But the truth is that they didn't have much of a choice.
Mukasey is a well-regarded, experienced judge. He spent 18 years on the federal bench and developed an impressive amount of experience trying national security cases, including the government's case against Jose Padilla. He is not part of the president's inner circle, and his record suggests that he holds his duty to uphold the law as more important than toeing the party line.
Mukasey is an intelligent, credible man whose leadership will surely boost morale at the badly damaged Justice Department, which has been in disarray since before the resignation of his predecessor, White House yes-man Alberto Gonzales. With 13 months left in the president's term, the importance of getting this department in order, and under the leadership of a competent judge, cannot be understated.
Still, he is not an ideal candidate. An ideal candidate would be willing to say, under oath, that he would take his cues on torture from the Geneva Conventions and that he would not, under any circumstances, permit the CIA - the U.S. military has already been restricted - to engage in waterboarding, as they are currently able to do by U.S. law.
This ideal candidate is not likely to be nominated by the current administration.
Sens. Feinstein and Schumer chose to work with what they had. They made the right choice.
The alternative would have been 13 months of "recess" appointments who may have proven far worse than Mukasey.
This nomination process has also shown that Congress has been asleep at the wheel. If waterboarding is torture - and we adamantly believe it is - then why, oh why, did Congress leave the CIA a legal loophole to continue doing it?
No attorney general can enforce laws that haven't been passed by Congress. And while Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has introduced legislation to ban waterboarding for all government agencies, the time lag is unconscionable. Mukasey promised that he would uphold that law, if passed, or any other laws banning waterboarding. Congress needs to get such a law on the books.
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