Michael Mukasey is right not to look smug.Photo: AFP/Getty Images
Are things looking less rosy for Michael Mukasey, the man who was meant to finally give conservatives an orgasm? The seemingly spotless Bush nominee for U.S. Attorney General has run into a couple of hurdles in the last week during Senate confirmation hearings. The first one is torture: Mukasey told senators that he didn’t know whether “waterboarding,” the practice of simulating the act of drowning so that a prisoner will divulge information, was unlawful or not. “It turned away from an easy confirmation,” a high-ranking Democrat told the Daily News. The second hurdle is presidential candidate Chris Dodd. The Connecticut senator has announced that he will vote against Mukasey’s confirmation, largely because the former judge and prosecutor has said that the president might be above certain presidential statutes. “That is about as basic as it gets,” Dodd later said. “You must obey the law. Everyone must.” Marc Cooper at the Huffington Post points out that once Dodd turned against him, the other Democratic presidential candidates have been forced to turn their thumbs down, too. Torture, as the old saying goes, is not an easy issue to get behind. Mukasey, what happened? You were our hometown boy. Don’t make us pull a Rudy and turn against our own kind!
Dodd Sets Pace on Dunking Mukasey [HuffPo]
Michael Mukasey’s AG Confirmation in Doubt [NYDN]
