Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Another letter in the same issue from Anthony M. Paul of Coral Gables, Florida stated the following:

"Michael B. Mukasey's wisdom on waterboarding: `If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.'  Apparently, our next attorney general doesn't understand what waterboarding is; can't figure out whether it is legal or not; or has figured this out but is afraid to say so.

"With this caliber of prospective moral leadership, we may as well have kept Alberto R. Gonzales."

Senator John McCain of Arizona brought out a valid point against torture.  Having been a prisoner of war in Vietnam, he recognizes that if the U.S.A. continues its torture syndrome, it can only embolden those who capture American service personnel in Iraq to torture too.  

A letter to the editors in the same October 20 New York Times by Herbert Shafer of Atlanta also confronted the subject of Mukasey's stated "uncertainty" concerning torture:

"If Michael B. Mukasey can't flat say that waterboarding constitutes torture, then he is unworthy of confirmation as attorney general.  

"Moreover, his view of presidential power - that a president may safely exceed Congressional authority limiting that most intrusive, most Orwellian practice of eavesdropping - disqualifies him from holding any public office."

Immediate impeachment is justified beyond a shadow of a doubt.  With his time remaining as White House resident, the entire world shudders at the horrifying mischief Bush is capable of!  

A letter in the New York Times on October 19 from Philip Shenon also related to the Mukasey confirmation hearing:

"'Is waterboarding constitutional?' was asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.

"'I don't know what is involved in the technique,' Mr. Mukasey replied.  `If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.'

"Whitehouse called this response a `massive hedge.'

"The fact lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, as well as human rights groups as well as civil liberties groups have declared waterboarding is definitely torture apparently has made no impact on this nominee.

"'I mean, either it is or it isn't,' Mr. Whitehouse continued, trying to get an answer.

"Waterboarding, he said, `is the practice of putting somebody in a reclining position, strapping them down, putting cloth over their faces and pouring water over the cloth to simulate the feeling of drowning.  Is that constitutional?'

"All that Mukasey would reply was `If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional.'"

This evasive reply reveals clearly where Mukasey is coming from.  When the so-called Supreme Court would not listen to the case of a terror suspect who had been kidnapped by so called U.S. security and flown to a secret destination, being subjected to lengthy interrogation and even torture, and then finally released, the Court would not listen to that victim's complaint in his desperate plea for justice.

Based on some of its decisions, many critics label the current U.S. Supreme Court as "extremist".  The aforementioned case is an example of why this label is being applied.