October 26, 2007

Mucking About With Mukasey

Hatched by Dafydd

In our last whack at the contentious issue of the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his replacement (maybe) with "someone better," I warned that this might not be as easy or successful as 158% of all conservatives swore it would be. "Why, anybody we get would better than Gonzales!" was the usual refrain, as I recall; also, "We just fire Gonzales, then go out and get someone much, much better!"

I played Cassandra then, pointing out that, while I shared many of the conservative objections to Gonzales, replacement proponents were skipping over a critically important step: They had no plan for how to get this "someone better" confirmed by a Democratic Senate... or even supported by a Judiciary Committee chaired by Sen. Pat "Leaky" Leahy (D-VT, 95%), with ranking Republican Arlen Specter (R-PA, 43%).

Why would Democrats support an attorney general who is "better" than Gonzales -- from a conservative perspective? The Democrats are enemies of conservativism... they want to hurt or destroy it, not promote it.

In that previous post linked above, "Is AG Designate Mukasey Already Kowtowing to Pat Leahy?", I worried that Mukasey was already, on the first day of his hearing, giving a number of answers and reassurances to Democrats that I found disturbing (the reassurances, I mean... though I must admit I actually do find some of the Democrats themselves "disturbing" as well):

  • He reassured Democrats that he believes that the president "doesn't have the authority to use torture techniques against terrorism suspects;"
  • That he would bar United States Attorneys and other lower-ranking Justice-Department officials from making or receiving calls to "political figures to talk about cases;" thus, local elected officials would not be allowed even to talk to the USA for their district to answer their constituent's questions about cases of local interest. (This also appears to imply that local Republicans were tainting or biasing cases somehow -- an allegation which the Democrats could never support, but to which Mukasey now lends credibility by his ham-fisted answer.)
  • That his primary role as attorney general will be to say "No" to the president; "that's what I'm there for," he assured Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY, 100%). [And here I thought the primary purpose of the AG was to execute the laws of the United States of America... not to stop the president from doing anything that offends Chuck Schumer];
  • That, in the Department of Justice, “Hiring is going to be based solely on competence and ability and dedication and not based on whether somebody’s got an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to their name.”

    Which sounds good, until one recalls that Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton (D-NY, 95%), James Carville, Sandy Berger, and Noam Chomsky all have "competence and ability and dedication;" but are they really good rôle models for top picks in the Mukasey Justice Department? I noted that Mukasey had left off the quality of "willingness... to follow the president's legal priorities and agendas, rather than ride off on their own quests."

Mukasey as a "political peace offering" to Democrats, as AP called him on October 17th, was worrisome enough; but his refusal to take a stand on some very important controversies over the next few days was worse. Repeatedly, for example, the Democrats drilled down on what, exactly, constituted forbidden "torture" -- in particular, did that prohibition apply to waterboarding, the most successful method of interrogating terrorists we have ever developed?

To which questions, Mukasey answered a resounding and calming "I don't know." He claimed not to know what waterboarding was, thus couldn't make a decision.

Well... the "peace offering to Democrats" appears to be in peril due to that very waffling, for today we have this:

The nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general encountered resistance today, with some Democratic senators suggesting for the first time that they might oppose Mr. Mukasey if he does not make clear that he opposes waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques that have been used against terror suspects.

The ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, joined in the expressions of concern about Mr. Mukasey. The senator said in an interview today the nomination could hinge on Mr. Mukasey’s written response to a series of questions posed to him this week about the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, including its use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

But what does the Times mean by saying "some Democratic senators?" As it turns out, what they're obliquely trying to say is that all Democrats on the J-Com -- a majority, of course, since the Democrats run the Senate -- plus Senate Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 90%) demand that he specifically ban waterboarding, or they won't vote for his confirmation:

On Tuesday, all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Mr. Mukasey asking him to make a clear-cut statement of opposition to waterboarding and to describe it as illegal.

On Thursday, the Senator Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, was asked by a reporter if Mr. Mukasey should be confirmed in light of his failure to make a statement of opposition to waterboarding.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Senator Reid said, adding that he had been “troubled” by Mr. Mukasey’s testimony last week. “I think if he doesn’t change his direction in that regard, he could have at least one concern. And that’s me.”

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, said that his vote on the nomination might depend on Mr. Mukasey’s written response to questions about waterboarding. “It’s fair to say that my vote would depend on him answering the question,” he told reporters. [I suspect that Leahy would not be satisfied by Mukasey "answering the question" by rejecting a ban on waterboarding. But I'm probably doing the senator an injustice; I'm sure he is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men.]

Alex Swartsel, spokeswoman for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, another Democrat on the committee, said Friday that Mr. Mukasey’s views on waterboarding were “the issue could cause the senator to vote against Mukasey.” She said Mr. Whitehouse “wants to see the judge’s answer before he makes that determination.”

So there you have it. The Democrats are making it blindingly clear: The cost for confirming Michael Mukasey is that he promise to make waterboarding illegal in all cases.

Will the president accept this ultimatum? Will he throw away the only means we have of extracting intelligence vital to our nation's security from the hardest terrorist prisoners... just to make a "political peace offering" to the Democrats? And if he refuses -- if Mukasey sticks to his ambivalent, waffling, Kerryesque, "on the one hand/on the other hand" guns -- will the Democrats on the J-Com, joined by Arlen Specter, shoot down Mukasey's nomination, setting us right back to square one again?

Is this what the collapse of GOP support for Gonzales has bought us?

We closed our piece last time with a plea for conservatives to explain to us, in comments here or blogposts or articles elsewhere, why it was, in the end, a good thing that we forced Gonzales from office. So far as I know, none has taken up the angry man's burden; having accomplished the purpose of getting rid of the hated Gonzales -- who stood in the way of mass deportations of all illegals, either directly or by "attrition" (which means starving them out) -- conservatives seemed to do naught but congratulate themselves on a job well done... and then just, like the moving finger, move on.

I'll close this one the same way: Will some conservative who called for the ouster of Alberto Gonzales please step up to the plate and make a reasoned argument why we're better off now -- even if Mukasey agrees to make waterboarding illegal in all circumstances and for any reason -- than we were with the admittedly flawed Gonzales?

I'm tired of hearing crickets. Time's a flying.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 26, 2007, at the time of 5:34 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: nk

Gonzalez was a crony and a yes-man but you forgot that once you saw his incompetence. Many of the Administration's humiliations from Hamzi/Hamdan/Padilla to the U.S. Attorney firings are due solely to his worthleness. Anybody better than him.

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2007 8:23 PM

The following hissed in response by: Fat Man

I hope the Democrats go for a national referendum on terrorist interogation. That'll be a winning issue for them;-)

The above hissed in response by: Fat Man [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2007 9:21 PM

The following hissed in response by: FredTownWard

I disagreed with those conservatives who (stupidly IMHO) were in such a hurry to feed Gonzales to the Democrats, but I wasn't exactly sorry to see him go. "Nice guy" and "mostly competent" won't get it done against foreign terrorists or their domestic allies in Congress.

Bush and Mukasey should continue to be reasonable and accommodating as grownups should and then if or more likely when Democrats do what Democrats do, Bush should simply recess appoint him and let Democrats scream themselves hoarse... AGAIN.

Democrats, being Democrats NEVER learn, but we conservatives REALLY ought to learn to quit doubting Bush on those things he's never failed us on yet.

The above hissed in response by: FredTownWard [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2007 9:29 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Nk:

Anybody better than him.

Janet Reno?

FredTownWard:

The problem with recess appointments is that they never have as much power as a confirmed appointment. Oh, yes, on paper they're the same; but in reality, they have little to no "hegemony," a term from Communist Antonio Gramsci that I take to mean "perceived fitness to command."

To quote a sigline I saw on a BBS: "In theory, theory and practice are the same; but in practice, they're different."

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 26, 2007 11:37 PM

The following hissed in response by: xennady

George Bush chose both nominees, and he choose poorly. Blaming conservatives because Gonzales was a bumbling idiot is wrong. Bush should have chosen someone competent in the beginning. Once again the Bush political genius for splitting the GOP manifests itself: conservatives had the choice of supporting the plainly incompetent Gonzales, or not supporting him thus bringing about the unfotunate situation we have today with the Mukasy nomination. Either option was bad, and both could have been avoided with a little more competence by George W. Bush. The buck stops there.

The above hissed in response by: xennady [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 3:42 AM

The following hissed in response by: FredTownWard

Dafydd, I'd be willing to agree that recess appointments don't have the same PERCEPTION (not power) as Senate-approved appointments...

NORMALLY,

but we are not living in normal times. IMHO the very BEST thing that can happen for Bush is to once more be seen going the extra mile while the Democrats continue to behave PUBLICLY like the odious slime that they are.

After all if Democrats were to approve Mukasey without trying to blackmail him into sabotaging the GWOT, that would imply that they are NOT a bunch of knowing traitors,...

and WE know that they ARE. So if Democrats want to keep demonstrating the fact to the less informed, I say go ahead; MAKE Bush's day.

The above hissed in response by: FredTownWard [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 5:26 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

I look forward to Gonzales' memoir of how the dhimmies lied and manipulated him and his positions.
One result is that popular TV is now full of shows that have episodes that riff off of the idea that the Feds are out torturing people. The dhimmies have managed to instill in the popular mind the false idea we are torturing and that the President is behind it.
That is not only blatantly false - it is pernicious and destructive.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 6:11 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Xennady:

Blaming conservatives because Gonzales was a bumbling idiot is wrong. Bush should have chosen someone competent in the beginning.... Either option was bad, and both could have been avoided with a little more competence by George W. Bush. The buck stops there.

So you focus like a laser beam on Bush not choosing someone you liked "in the beginning," but you appear to have no suggestion for moving forward -- either when Gonzales was AG or now.

How is this different from the Democrats -- who obsess on how we got into Iraq in the beginning but seem uninterested in where we go from here?

At any given moment, we can make a choice, collapse the state vector, and push the universe into one and only one of a number of specific, concrete realities. It is not given to us to rewind the tape and make a different decision a couple of years ago. (Except in science fiction, and even there, it usually turns out badly.)

I warned that if Gonzales were forced out, we would not end up with "someone better" but rather someone worse or no one at all. At the moment we hover between potential states... which do you choose? What should Bush do at this point?

Do you know? Are you interested? ("Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are.")

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 6:39 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

^_^ Janet Reno is from the wrong party but my impression of her is that she served her President very capably both in the legal and political arenas. Her defiance of the courts and popular opinion in the Elian Gonzalez case was as gutsy a thing as I have seen. IIRC she was Clinton's third choice and in retrospect the rejection of the two ladies from New York was serendipitous.

As for who to replace Gonzalez, I wish we could clone Ashcroft. Which may be the real problem with Gonzalez and conservatives -- he tried to step into shoes too big for him.

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 8:12 AM

The following hissed in response by: xennady

Dafydd: It's not about Bush choosing someone that I "liked" - it's about Bush choosing someone who could avoid the clumsy stupid gaffes and unforced errors that made Gonzales a joke. My suggestion for moving forward is for Bush to refuse to allow Mukasey to give the guarantees that the left wants even if that causes Mukasey to not be confirmed. Then Bush chooses someone who will publicly challenge the left's assumption that the primary concern of the American people in an AG is that he or she puts the health and comfort of terrorists above all other concerns. I suspect the public doesn't agree with the them on this but Bush doesn't seem interested in finding out.

The above hissed in response by: xennady [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 12:19 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

Well if conservatives did not throw everyone under the bus the moment there was a problem we would not be in this position.

I don't think Gonzales is an idiot. In fact until he went to Washington and ran afoul of the left and right he was considered a brilliant man.

Bush chose Ashcroft, the right loved him, but it was not Bush's fault he left. The truth is Dafydd is right.

As for torture, the US does not torture.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 4:30 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Xennady:

Dafydd: It's not about Bush choosing someone that I "liked" - it's about Bush choosing someone who could avoid the clumsy stupid gaffes and unforced errors that made Gonzales a joke.

I understand that conservatives enjoyed thinking of Gonzales as a "joke." But honestly, I believe you malign the man and misremember much of his tenure. Yes, he made some unforced "gaffes;" but most of the so-called gaffes comprised policies that conservatives disagreed with; and much of the rest were quite forced... by determined Democratic opposition.

Take the refusal to extend the appointments of a number of USAs. There was nothing controversial about this -- until the Democrats literally made a federal case out of it.

Gonzales's explanation -- that they were not renewed for performance reasons -- is completely accurate: The particular aspect of performance they flunked was the one I listed above, the "willingness... to follow the president's legal priorities and agendas, rather than ride off on their own quests." But when the Democrats called Gonazles a liar -- because these USAs worked the same number of hours as the rest, as if workload or work habits were the sole determinant of "performance" -- conservatives joined in the chorus, also saying that Gonzales had lied about the reason for the firing.

I reckon politics makes strange bedfellows.

The rest of the contretemps came as the natural result of a dozen Democrats seizing upon every word that Gonzales said, rewriting it into a bogus quotation, mocking it, and hauling him before yet another congressional tribunal to explain the Democrats' rewrite of what he actually said.

This is not an "unforced error" or a "clumsy stupid gaffe"... but the conservatives typically linked arms with the liberals, seizing upon these as more evidence of Gonzales's "incompetence."

I agree that he was not the best AG I've seen: He was not as forceful, articulate, or steadfast as I would wish. But a great chasm yawns between that and "incompetence" or "dhimmitude." (And to those who compare him unfavorably to Janet Reno, I suppose ethics and the determination to follow the law and the Constitution don't rank high on the list of standards you expect an Attorney General to meet.)

Gonzales was savaged by the Left; and for reasons little related to his actual performance, the Right piled on and pushed him out. At this point, I don't see either alternative as particularly palatable: nominating someone that Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer will confirm... or recess appointing someone who will be flashy and say all the things conservatives want to hear, but who will be unable actually to run the department.

At this point, I would probably go with the latter. But we certainly did not improve the situation by forcing out Gonzales. Rather, we made it much worse.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 5:22 PM

The following hissed in response by: The Yell

So far as I know, none has taken up the angry man's burden; having accomplished the purpose of getting rid of the hated Gonzales -- who stood in the way of mass deportations of all illegals, either directly or by "attrition" (which means starving them out) -- conservatives seemed to do naught but congratulate themselves on a job well done... and then just, like the moving finger, move on.

That's not true at all. I told you at the time to go look at what Captain Ed and others were saying, much along the lines Xennady repeats. They thought he was a dumb liar. I didn't buy into the hype either, but there it is. They did "explain" repeatedly. Failing to make the case is different from total silence.

And its not about conservatism. We conservatives know why the DOJ and Homeland Security aren't shoving hard on black market labor and DemoRat campaign finance shenanigans, and it's George W. Bush.

The above hissed in response by: The Yell [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 27, 2007 11:58 PM

The following hissed in response by: xennady

Dafydd: I have no doubt Mr. Gonzales is a decent and honorable man. But as you note his leftist opponents aren't, and he was utterly unable to deal with this fact.It's my belief that someone in a political job must be able to fight political battles when the occasion demands it, and he couldn't. For example he should have been able to fire people without letting Democrats make up a totally bogus scandal. Someone-probably George Bush-should have told him that the Democrats were out to destroy him (and all Republicans) since he apparently didn't figure it out for himself.Now there are plenty of good AG candidates around that I doubt would make that mistake-Ted Olson comes to mind-but Bush didn't give one of them the nod. Instead he picked a decent Texas judge with a great life story who was out of his depth. And if some conservatives wanted Gonzales out because of policy disagreements with him, shame on them, because the buck stops with George Bush, not Alberto Gonzales.

The above hissed in response by: xennady [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 28, 2007 4:28 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Xennady:

It's my belief that someone in a political job must be able to fight political battles when the occasion demands it, and he couldn't.

No argument there.

Now there are plenty of good AG candidates around that I doubt would make that mistake-Ted Olson comes to mind-but Bush didn't give one of them the nod.

Because after John Ashcroft, nobody of Ted Olson's ilk would even have gotten a vote in the Senate: If the Democrats all voted against him, joined by Arlen Specter, then even in the Republican 109th Senate, the J-Com would have killed the Olson nomination 10 to 9.

President Bush believed that Alberto Gonzales was as far to the right as he could nominate and still get a vote in the Senate (thus a confirmation). I think he was right... because of Specter.

The question is whether we improved the situation by ousting Gonzales to get Mukasey; I don't think we did.

The other question is whether Mukasey should pronounce that waterboarding is torture and is always illegal -- thus guaranteeing his confirmation -- or whether he should tell the Democrats to stuff it on waterboarding, thus making it very likely he will be rejected in committee.

Bush can recess appoint Michael Mukasey; but if there is anything with less hegemony than a recess appointment... it's a recess appointment of a nominee who was just rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee!

I think he should do the latter, though it means we won't have an attorney general for the next year and a half, at a time when the active participation of law enforcement in fighting the war on global hirabah is critical. But I hate that we're reduced to such a Hobson's choice.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 28, 2007 7:21 AM

The following hissed in response by: scrapiron

It appears that Leaky Leahy is trying to determine if he would be an AG that would prosecute congress critters that leak national security information for political purposes. Leaky doesn't want to be Bubba's girlfriend for a few years.

The above hissed in response by: scrapiron [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 28, 2007 4:59 PM

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