The Stench of Torture
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
The stench of torture that permeates the White House has spread to Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, putting what had been seen as a surefire nomination at risk and reigniting a momentous ethical debate.
By refusing to acknowledge at his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture, Mukasey appeared to throw his lot in with those who embrace an authoritarian strain of moral relativism, one that excuses abhorrent and illegal policies as long as the president declares they're in the national interest.
When longtime Bush loyalist Alberto Gonzales was nominated to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, critics expressed what turned out to be eminently justified concern that he would never buck the White House. By all accounts, Mukasey, a federal judge, is much more independent than Gonzales. As I wrote in my Sept. 18 column, Bush evidently realized that the Democratic Congress wouldn't let him install another complete lickspittle into the nation's top law-enforcement post.
Nevertheless, Bush and Vice President Cheney desperately need someone in that job who won't undermine the most radical of their legal positions: Those regarding executive power and the treatment of terrorism suspects. And they seem to have found such a person in Mukasey.
Scott Shane writes in the New York Times: "Six years after the Bush administration embraced harsh physical tactics for interrogating terrorism suspects, and two years after it reportedly dropped the most extreme of those techniques, the taint of torture clings to American counterterrorism efforts.
(Continued here.)
Special to washingtonpost.com
The stench of torture that permeates the White House has spread to Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, putting what had been seen as a surefire nomination at risk and reigniting a momentous ethical debate.
By refusing to acknowledge at his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture, Mukasey appeared to throw his lot in with those who embrace an authoritarian strain of moral relativism, one that excuses abhorrent and illegal policies as long as the president declares they're in the national interest.
When longtime Bush loyalist Alberto Gonzales was nominated to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, critics expressed what turned out to be eminently justified concern that he would never buck the White House. By all accounts, Mukasey, a federal judge, is much more independent than Gonzales. As I wrote in my Sept. 18 column, Bush evidently realized that the Democratic Congress wouldn't let him install another complete lickspittle into the nation's top law-enforcement post.
Nevertheless, Bush and Vice President Cheney desperately need someone in that job who won't undermine the most radical of their legal positions: Those regarding executive power and the treatment of terrorism suspects. And they seem to have found such a person in Mukasey.
Scott Shane writes in the New York Times: "Six years after the Bush administration embraced harsh physical tactics for interrogating terrorism suspects, and two years after it reportedly dropped the most extreme of those techniques, the taint of torture clings to American counterterrorism efforts.
(Continued here.)
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