Just Say No

I have been following the maneuvering around the Mukasey nomination process with much interest. What I find most disturbing is, perhaps surprisingly or perhaps not, is much of what goes on among the lefty blogs I read, and link to, and admire. Among the greatest sinners in this regard is Glenn Greenwald, normally so clear-eyed, able to cut through the way issues are framed to the heart of a matter. On the issue of Mukasey, however, Greenwald loses himself in the way the Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee is handling this entire episode (I say Republican-dominated, because if any of the Democrats had balls, Mukasey would not even have come up for nomination, let alone having New York's senior Democratic Senator, Charles Schumer, be the one to present him to the committee, said committee, upon which Schumer sits, usually to little effect). To make my point, I will begin with Greenwald's sins, and then move backward to what I feel is the way the insipid, stupid, even evil framing of this whole charade. I will end, I hope, with something from digby, who escapes just long enough from her own entrapment within the terms of the debate to offer a view that should make clear just how fall we have fallen.

First, from Greenwald:

This notion that Mukasey's unwillingness to declare waterboarding categorically illegal crosses some sort of bright Beltway line seems . . . unconvincing, even somewhat manipulative. It has long been known that the Bush administration directed the CIA (at least) to waterboard detainees who were convicted of nothing. There was very little real protest about any of that from any genuine Beltway power circles, including Senate Democrats.

My question is this - why not just declare that waterboarding is torture (as it is so defined in international law, in treaties to which the Unites States is a ratified signatory, giving them the force of law under the Constitution, which even now lies in a smoking heap upon the floor) and say that any person coming before the committee for confirmation on any national security or law enforcement position must either absolutely declare torture to be outside our legal and constitutional prerogatives, or they are unfit to sit in any office of responsibility. The wrangling about waterboarding is a substitute for a serious discussion - a principled discussion - on torture in general. Rather than have that discussion, we are allowing the entire process to be hijacked by those who want an answer to a question that anyone who has a moral bone in their body would know without even blinking.

If you read through these posts over at Think Progress, you will see what I mean. The entire discussion has descended to the level of discussing the acceptability of one or another method of torture, rather than discussing whether or not Mukasey should be disbarred for even having doubts about the legal or constitutional (not to mention moral) acceptability of torture. We have traveled too far down the road of dealing with this particular question for there to be serious recovery at this point, although I believe in this post, digby comes close to cutting through the nonsense and seeing clearly, even if for only one shining moment:

Every time they normalize state sanctioned sadism, from tasering to waterboarding, we are one step closer to fully accepting a police state. That's how they do it. It never happens over night. It happens one taboo at a time.

We are a torture culture, immoral, vulgar and profane. We actually think it's fun. If college boys and reporters can laugh about it, how bad can it be? Thanks Dick and George.

Rather than discussing what Mukasey may think and when he began to think it about waterboarding, someone on the Senate panel should just read that portion of digby's post I just highlighted. Of course, it would be just gibberish to most of those present, regardless of party. At least it would be on the record of the United States Senate that we are, indeed, a sadistic, torture culture.

It would be better if they turned Mukasey away with a recommendation for impeachment from his current lofty perch atop a federal bench. I can dream, can't I?