MUKASEY ASKED TO RETRACT STATEMENT ABOUT WATER-BOARDING

In today's The New York Times, Philip Shenon writes that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Panel have signed a letter to Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee to be Attorney General, asking him to retract his statement about the legality of water-boarding.

Writes Shenon:

"All 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, on Tuesday for a clear-cut statement that the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been used by the C.I.A. against terrorism suspects, is illegal.

"In his confirmation hearings last week, Mr. Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York, declined to say if waterboarding was torture or was otherwise illegal; he insisted he was not aware of how the technique was carried out."

Mukasey should be rejected unless he answers truthfully and directly. To think a former federal judge on the Court of Appeals would not know if water-boarding was torture is simply beyond belief. Mukasey was obviously defending the practices of Bush and Cheney, the people who are appointing him.

By refusing to answer and say that water-boarding is torture, Mukasey becomes a dangerous nominee. The president for all his powers does not have the power to violate the Constitution and all our other laws. The president may not violate an individual's rights under the Bill of Rights. In other words, the president may not make torture a legal action on his say-so because the president is subject to the rule of law just as the rest of us. Because Mukasey fudges and obfuscates on this central principle of American democracy, he does not deserve to be the chief law enforcement official of the United States.