'NYT' Editorial -- and Frank Rich -- Rip Democrats Over 'Capitulation' On Mukasey Okay

By: E&P Staff Expressing an unusual level of disgust with Democratic leaders, The New York Times in a Sunday editorial criticizes, even mocks, the party's leaders for failing to halt the nomination of Michael Mukasey as the new U.S. Attorney General this week.

He won the nod with a handful of Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, helping give the president 53 votes. But as the Times -- following the lead of several liberal bloggers -- pointed out, this was far short of the number needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, a tactic often used by Republicans in the past year.

In his Sunday column, Frank Rich added: "As Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activists in Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America?s two most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.

"So what if America?s chief law enforcement official won?t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You?re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you?re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf?s crackdown in Islamabad."

Here is an excerpt from the editorial. It and the Rich column are at www.nytimes.com.
*

On Thursday, the Senate voted by 53 to 40 to confirm Mr. Mukasey even though he would not answer a simple question: does he think waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner, is torture and therefore illegal?

Democrats offer excuses for their sorry record, starting with their razor-thin majority. But it is often said that any vote in the Senate requires more than 60 votes ? enough to overcome a filibuster. So why did Mr. Mukasey get by with only 53 votes? Given the success the Republicans have had in blocking action when the Democrats cannot muster 60 votes, the main culprit appears to be the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush.

Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who turned the tide for this nomination, said that if the Senate did not approve Mr. Mukasey, the president would get by with an interim appointment who would be under the sway of ?the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney.? He argued that Mr. Mukasey could be counted on to reverse the politicization of the Justice Department that occurred under Alberto Gonzales, and that Mr. Mukasey?s reticence about calling waterboarding illegal might well become moot, because the Senate was considering a law making clear that it is illegal.

That is precisely the sort of cozy rationalization that Mr. Schumer and his colleagues have used so many times to back down from a confrontation with Mr. Bush. The truth is, Mr. Mukasey is already in the grip of that ?extreme ideology.? If he were not, he could have answered the question about waterboarding.

Mr. Bush said Mr. Mukasey could not do so because it would reveal classified information about Central Intelligence Agency interrogation techniques. That is nonsense. Mr. Mukasey was not asked if C.I.A. jailers have used waterboarding on prisoners, something he could be expected to know nothing about. He was simply asked if, as a general matter, waterboarding is illegal.

It was not a difficult question. Waterboarding is specifically banned by the Army Field Manual, and it is plainly illegal under the federal Anti-Torture Act, federal assault statutes, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. It is hard to see how any nominee worthy of the position of attorney general could fail to answer ?yes.?....

All of this leaves us wondering whether Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders were more focused on the 2008 elections than on doing their constitutional duty. Certainly, being made to look weak on terrorism might make it harder for them to expand their majority.

We are not suggesting the Democrats reject every presidential appointee, or that the president?s preferences not be taken into account. But Democrats have done precious little to avoid the kind of spectacle the world saw last week: the Senate giving the job of attorney general, chief law enforcement officer in the world?s oldest democracy, to a man who does not even have the integrity to take a stand against torture.