About the best we can say about Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s testimony Wednesday in the Senate is that he was no Alberto Gonzales, with the frequent memory lapses and possibly intentional misstatements. But that is a very low bar. On torture, domestic spying and other important matters, Mr. Mukasey parroted the Bush administration’s deplorable line. He was particularly disappointing in his see-no-evil approach to the misconduct at the Justice Department before he arrived.
The American people deserve better from their highest law-enforcement official, who was making his first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since taking office in November. To a disturbing degree, he has adopted his predecessor’s habit of saying precisely what the White House wanted to hear.
It should not have been hard for Mr. Mukasey to admit that waterboarding - the odious practice of making prisoners believe they are about to be drowned - is torture. He frankly conceded that if it were done to him it “would feel that way.” But he weaved and dodged questions from senators about whether it is torture when it is done to other people, and whether it is illegal.
Mr. Mukasey also pushed Congress to give immunity to telecommunications companies for any illegal acts they committed while helping the administration carry out its outlaw domestic spying program. Mr. Mukasey is responsible for enforcing the law. Pushing Congress to immunize lawbreakers, especially before it learns what laws were broken, is inconsistent with this duty.
Mr. Mukasey took office in the wake of a scandal - accusations that federal prosecutions were politicized, that nonpolitical positions were filled with partisans and that Mr. Gonzales lied about it to Congress. These serious charges did not go away simply because Mr. Gonzales did. Mr. Mukasey needs to ensure that they are investigated, and to assure the public that any misconduct in his department has been cleaned up.
He has yet to do so. In his written testimony, Mr. Mukasey ignored the scandal that roiled his department last year. His answers to questions from senators on the subject were lackadaisical. He seemed to know and care little about well-publicized charges by Scott Bloch, the chief of the Office of Special Counsel, that the Justice Department is impeding his investigation.
Mr. Mukasey was equally disappointing about the refusal of certain administration witnesses to answer Congressional subpoenas to testify about the United States attorneys scandal. He suggested that if the administration believes that executive privilege shields them, that ends the matter. He could not be more mistaken.
Mr. Mukasey has taken some important steps to depoliticize the Justice Department, notably establishing a better wall between the White House and the department. His testimony was an unfortunate reminder, however, that he has yet to show the independence and respect for the rule of law that the job requires.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Who is surprised?And the dems are complicite.Tony
Mukasey connections to NY mafia somehow slipped by the NY Times.
I would trust this Mukasey shill about as far as I could spit…sorry, I must have been thinking out loud…
so this is any different from what he said, or didn’t say, back in november’s hearings. here we are, two months later, and people are disappointed. where was the disappointment in november. this country is amazing.
The main value of this NYT editorial is its demonstration of how the NYT really works. If you took the piece at face value, you’d imagine that the NYT seriously opposes torture, & that it strongly disapproves of Mukasey.
That’s not at all the case, however. They’re just paying sanctimonious lip service to such concerns, so that liberals who read the paper will feel better about themselves. Liberals like to believe that they “represent” higher moral values.
The truth about the NYT, though, is more accurately seen by their recent hiring the noted war criminal & vicious liar Bill Kristol, to their stable of columnists. This would be roughly on a par with a prestigious German daily newspaper hiring Josef Goebbels, had Germany won WWII. The NYT already had a bunch of rightwing warmongers like David Brooks & Thomas Friedman, as columnists. Offering a column to Kristol is no different than offering one to Hannity or Limbaugh.
The NYT enjoys striking these periodic pseudo-moral poses, just to encourage the illusion that they stand for something other than sucking up to power. In between such moments, however, they’re busy 24/7 currying favor with the forces which made Mukasey possible.
As usual, RichM, you hit a bullseye.
Mukasey is only doing what Bush appointed him to do, protect the administration until they can get out of town. So yes, he will evade the issue of waterboarding, he will obstruct the investigation of the firing of the attorneys general. His job, like that of Gonzales, is political. Would Bush put forth anyone else? Feingold and Feinstein did us a disservice confirming him because Bush would have been without cover if he had to leave a temporary AG who everyone would have known was a political hack. They allowed Bush to gain some much needed time on this and that’s what is happening. Mukasey is only incrementally an improvement over Gonzales. Don’t expect anything of substance from him, it’s not in the agreement.
kathyodat
Did you notice the SOB’s attitude when questioned by the Democratic senators? He looked bored, condescending, arrogant and annoyed that anyone dared to question him. Typical Bush appointee. At least Gonzales pretended to be less arrogant. Things are getting pretty bad when Torture Boy Gonzales is held up as the better example.
And who, pray tell were all the Dems that voted to approve him for this position, even after his shifty and evasive confirmation hearings? That was the chance to stop him then.
I suppose we’ll have more hearings and more ignored subpoenas and more ‘outrage’ and more mealy-mouthed editorial ‘outrage’ and in the end, it’s all a dog and pony show, and bush’s last (almost) year will drift to its end, and then it will all be forgotten, as ‘the new boss, same as the old boss’ takes over.
Nobody, Democrat or Republican, will ever answer for any of their crimes or dereliction of their constitutional duties.
My vote goes to the Greens this time, as it has in the past–no more ‘lesser of two evils’–that is truly ‘wasting your vote’. ‘We won’t be fooled again’!
Oh, please. New York Senator Chuck Schumer was the guy who recommended this mendacious asshole to the administration in the first place. The New York Times fell in line and now they say they’re “disappointed.” What a bunch of jerkoffs.
I did Feingold a disservice. emkay, you’re right, and it was Schumer and Feinstein who broke with the Democrats and voted with the Republicans to approve Mukasey’s nomination. He said he would look into the waterboarding and get back to them but, like bush’s Supreme Court nominees, he lied. Why the Democrats keep on pretending to believe Bush’s nominees is beyond me. They have a perfect record of lying their way into office. Something for which the Ministry of Propaganda is unwilling to call them out, although it seems capable of ferreting out any Democratic untruths and trumpeting them. Now why would that be?
kathyodat
kathyodat
when you agree with somebody–as most of us do with this new york times editorial–it is customary to say so instead of attacking the messenger. bush said he would be a uniter instead of a divider, but he certainly has divided progressives against everybody.
Who was it that said the NY Times “marches courageously out onto the battlefield after the battle is over and shoots the wounded”? Always sactimoniously tsk tsk ing after it is too late to do anything.
Disappointed??? If NY Times editors ever had any hopes about Mukassey, they are so obtuse they should not be allowed anywhere near a newsroom.