Mukasey Passes Key Senate Test

(CBS/AP)  The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 Tuesday to advance Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey's nomination, virtually ensuring confirmation for a former judge ensnarled in a bitter controversy over waterboarding.

The White House welcomed the committee's vote.

"We appreciate the vote of senators on the Judiciary Committee to forward the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to the full Senate," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "Judge Mukasey has clearly demonstrated that he will be an exceptional attorney general at this critical time."

Mukasey is expected to easily win confirmation by the full Senate, probably as soon as next week.

Mukasey lost support of most of the Democrats on the committee who initially favored him after he said he didn't know enough about waterboarding to say if it was torture and against U.S. and international law, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss.

However, two key Democrats accepted his vow to enforce any law Congress might enact against waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique used in interrogations.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy called Mukasey's promise disingenuous. "Unsaid, of course, is the fact that any such prohibition would have to be enacted over the veto of this president," said Leahy.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who suggested Mukasey to the White House in the first place, countered that the nominee's statements against waterboarding and for purging politics from the Justice Department amount to the best deal Democrats could get from the Bush administration.

"If we block Judge Mukasey's nomination and then learn in six months that waterboarding has continued unabated, that victory will seem much less valuable," he wrote in an op-ed in Tuesday's editions of The New York Times.

Announcements of support for Mukasey by Schumer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, virtually assured the former federal judge the majority vote he needed to be favorably recommended by the committee to replace Alberto Gonzales as the chief U.S. law enforcement officer.

Gonzales resigned two months ago in the midst of congressional investigation over his handling of the dismissal of eight U.S. prosecutors. Democrats said the firings were politically motivated. The dispute mushroomed into doubts about the credibility of Gonzales, a longtime friend and adviser to President Bush.

In tightly choreographed statements of support for Mukasey last week, Feinstein and Schumer essentially eliminated the chance that Democrats could kill the nomination in committee.

Many Democrats came out in opposition to Mukasey after he refused to say unequivocally that waterboarding is tantamount to torture and thus illegal under domestic and international law.

Mukasey rankled Democrats during his confirmation hearing by saying he was not familiar with the waterboarding technique and could not say whether it was torture.

Even Sen. Arlen Specter, the panel's ranking Republican, called that explanation "a flimsy excuse" and suggested instead that Muksaey declined to call waterboarding illegal torture because he wanted to avoid putting at legal risk U.S. officials who may have engaged in the practice.

But Specter said that outlawing waterboarding rests with Congress. He disclosed that he had talked with Mukasey a day earlier and received an assurance that the nominee would back up any such legislation and quit if Mr. Bush ignores his opinion.

Thus, Specter said, Mukasey had won his support.

Legal experts cautioned that if Mukasey called it torture, that effectively could have constituted an admission that the United States engaged in war crimes. It could also commit him to prosecuting U.S. officials even before he takes office.

[kissamaarse]

Mukasey and each and every U.S. Senator should take a trip or two to the waterboard before they decide whether waterboarding is torture. They say it mimics drowning. You cannot mimic drowning. On the waterboard you ARE drowning. Calling it mimicking is like saying burning trash is mimicking burning. Ask anyone who attended Navy S.E.R.E. in the early 1970s on the Mojave Desert in Southern California what a trip (or two, or three) to the waterboard was like. My hat''s off to any senator, Democrat or Republican, who draws the line against torture.

[liberalme]

watcher269

This is why we MUST clean house in Washington in 08! We are being lied to and raped by the very people we voted for.

Their own interest is all they''re serving and the rest of us can go to H E L L.

Well so can they--the reps from my state won''t get my vote!

[liberalme]

Coward never served 1 day in the military--probably was a professional student til VietNam war was over.

He''ll fit right in with his "can''t pee in a cup" Bush and "deferment" Cheney.

[neoconrcrazy]

mukasey, closet jewish neocon (another one!), supporter of liebermann and all things zionistic, pre-emptive, etc -

has just been shooed in by our jewish senators feinstein & schumer...... All hail israel, our new
masters in occupied jerusalem.....

[gunownerdan]

Feinstein and Schumer are two of the worst fascists in congress hands down.

[jowand]

Here is something to consider when evaluating this fascistic scum that is headed towards becoming our next Attorney General:

www.informationclearinghouse
.info/article18673.htm

Posted by FeelFree1 at 01:21 AM : Nov 07, 2007

He''s a good choice, he won''t be burning women and children to death like Janet Reno and her boss did in Waco Texas.

[watcher269-2009]

Feinstein changed her mind - maybe this is the reason - She sounds like a Republican when you read the below!


Dianne Feinstein%u2014the ninth wealthiest member of congress%u2014has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband%u2019s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein%u2019s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.
In 2000, Perini earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. After 9/11, Perini was transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the US Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the US Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.

[antizion]

Mukasey gets appointed only because two Jews from the democrat party O.K. him.

It''s the Jews stupid.

[lastdance4]

RE : KJVProphet (aka LAProphet.. aka NHProphet)

Take your Chronic ...Habitual...and Harassing - Political Spam - elsewhwere

[feelfree1]

Here is something to consider when evaluating this fascistic scum that is headed towards becoming our next Attorney General:

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18673.htm