Lindsey Graham says Mukasey should shun waterboarding
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has joined with two top Dems in saying that AG nominee Michael Mukasey should make it clear he would not approve waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Sen. Graham is a principled conservative who spent time in the JAG.
Mukasey was vague in his Senate testimony. He said that torture was unconstitutional and a violation of treaty obligations. But he said he didn’t know enough about waterboarding to know if it is torture. Among those not satisfied by that answer are Graham, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Pat Leahy and Arlen Specter.
Specter also has expressed dissatisfaction with the nominee’s statement that the Bush warrantless NSA eavedropping program was constitutional. Specter said he feared that Mukasey would advise the president he could ignore a law that Congress is trying to pass to authorize but limit this eavesdropping. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the president has power to order warrantless wiretaps in cases involving foreign intelligence.
My own view is that the Senate should not confirm Mukasey until it he has denounced waterboarding and similar methods of torture and until he says he would advise the president to abide by the law on wiretapping now working it way through the Congress. As an editorial writer for the Post-Dispatch, I wrote editorials opposing both Gonzales and Ashcroft. I don’t regret either. I opposed Gonzales because of his work as a White House counsel on the side of permitting torture and ignoring the Geneva Conventions. I opposed Ashcroft because of his long record as state AG and governor in opposition to civil rights and liberties. Although I do think that the president should have a presumption in favor of his nominees, the Gonzales and Ashcroft records were too clear for a paper with our values to support confirmation. I regret to see that the Post-Dispatch recently editorialized in favor of confirming Mukasey.
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Sometimes the law is an instrument of justice, morality and ethics. But sometimes, as Dickens said, it is "a ass, a idiot." That's what we discuss in Law Talk. No legal advice -- just law talk. Join moderator Bill Freivogel: attorney, former Post-Dispatch deputy editorial editor, professor at SIU-Carbondale's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute and director of SIUC's School of Journalism. 
WF, I, too, don’t know what “water boardig” is, and whether or not it is torture. Will you explain exactly what it is, please.
In your last paragraph you say Mukasey should agree to adhere to a law on wiretapping that is currenely working it’s way throught congress. Huuuuh???? Since when do laws work their way through congress?
Did you meant a “bill” working it’s way through congress? How could he
Comment by johnh -- October 29th, 2007 at 5:10 amagree to that since it may never become a law. Me thiks you may creating a legal mess.
I can’t see this as being anything other than a case of Mukasey being uncertain of his exact marching orders.
Comment by skippy -- October 29th, 2007 at 7:32 amI read somewhere recently where waterboarding(a torture technique simulating drowning)has been classified by our own Uniform Code of Military Justice as being “torture” since the Spanish-American War. Conservative, war-supporting Republicans such as Lindsay Graham and John McCain also denounce waterboarding as torture. What Puppet Master Cheney and Rehnquist’s Boy(the Decider-in-Chief)are saying is that torture is only torture if we say it is. Take their word for it–and these are the same guys who brought us the endless war in Iraq! Wake up, America!
Comment by whiterosesociety -- October 29th, 2007 at 7:53 amThe Attorney General is charged with enforcing the laws of the land. If Specter, Leahy, Graham et al sincerly think “waterboarding” is so heinous that it cannot be done even to save the lives of innocent people, they can submit a bill to the President that outlaws it. End of story. This supposed controversy is nothing more than political theater.
Comment by Go_Fish -- October 29th, 2007 at 8:28 amOur own special forces go through waterboarding as part of their training, even though chances are, they will never face it in the field. If captured, they will be killed before they can be waterboarded. Should that part of their training be replaced with tea and crumpets?
Comment by Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum -- October 29th, 2007 at 10:56 am“the Gonzales and Ashcroft records were too clear for a “PAPER WITH OUR VALUES” to support confirmation”
This has to be one of the funniest lines ever written on these blogs.
Comment by Amazedbythelunacy -- October 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pmBill, I forgot to add that it was nice to hear you on “St. Louis on the air” last Thursday talking about the late William Woo. Sounds like he was a fun guy.
I agree with your comment regarding Ashcroft and Gonzales, but must admit a new-found regard for Ascroft due to the paasage in Jack Goldsmith’s new book “The Terror Presidency”, where he describes the late-night effort by Gonzales (and another I can’t remember) to have the deathly ill Ashcroft sign off on the FISA extension. I think Mrs. Ashcrotfs’ was the appropriate response.
Comment by skippy -- October 29th, 2007 at 12:21 pmBill Freivogel:
“As an editorial writer for the Post-Dispatch, I wrote editorials opposing both Gonzales and Ashcroft. I don’t regret either. I opposed Gonzales because of his work as a White House counsel on the side of permitting torture and ignoring the Geneva Conventions. I opposed Ashcroft because of his long record as state AG and governor in opposition to civil rights and liberties.”
You also wrote editorials supporting Janet Reno when she toasted nearly a hundred innocent women and children at Waco because some of the male adults in the religious compound had guns. I hope you don’t think that was an exercise in civil rights and liberies for those poor souls?
Comment by Iconoclastic Sage -- October 29th, 2007 at 12:37 pmCan’t the Sage get anything right? If memory serves (and when it fails, there’s always the internet), Freivogel and Terry Ganey ran a lengthy series of articles questioning whether the FBI and Janet Reno’s DOJ were withholding information from the Danforth Commission.
Senator Graham appears nowhere on my list of Voices of Conscience, in part for the reason Go_Fish states.
Comment by Ron2 -- October 29th, 2007 at 12:49 pmNumber 9, Ron2:
“Can’t the Sage get anything right? If memory serves (and when it fails, there’s always the internet), Freivogel and Terry Ganey ran a lengthy series of articles questioning whether the FBI and Janet Reno’s DOJ were withholding information from the Danforth Commission.”
Whether information was withheld or not, Attorney General Janet Reno presided over the inhumane torture of innocent women and children, unless you think waterboarding is more of a rights violation than cremation?
Comment by Iconoclastic Sage -- October 29th, 2007 at 1:50 pm