BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Attorney General Michael Mukasey continues to duck and dodge the discussion of waterboarding as torture.  Is this his second or third time before Congress evading the question?

During the confirmation proceedings, Mukasey wouldn’t commit to waterboarding as a means of torture, saying that he would have to look further into the process.  Again, before the Judiciary Committee AG Mukasey won’t define the practice of tying someone to a board, stuffing his mouth with cloth, blindfolding him, holding him at a thirty to forty-five degree angle, head down and pouring water over the face creating the sensation of drowning as torture.  He still hasn’t (and won’t) make a definitive conclusion

However, he was willing to say that the practice has not been used since 2006 by the CIA.

These discussions have been going on for several days, occupying the time of our senators, all trying to get an answer from AG Michael Mukasey.  Mukasey says that he doesn’t know exactly how the waterboarding procedure works.  In fact, during his initial confirmation hearings, he acted as if he had no idea what waterboarding was.

Now, he is beating around the Bush, saying that it would depend on the circumstances or maybe it would depend on one thing or another, but he still won’t commit to the act as an act of torture.  And, so another Senate hearing continues to debate an issue that seems to have no resolution… at least from Mukasey’s point of view.  What Mukasey doesn’t seem to understand that waterboarding is like being pregnant.  It is or it isn’t.  You are or you aren’t. 

I would suggest that the Judiciary Committee stop all the mental masturbation of parsing words with Mukasey.  Have the Attorney General take a little trip to the S.E.R.E school at Fort Bragg.  We won’t ask him to spend the thirty days of so it takes to complete the Ranger training program.  We will just ask him to undergo the waterboarding part of the training… providing they are still waterboarding the trainees… and then ask him to give us an opinion.