Judiciary Committee approves Mukasey

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON -

As expected, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve President Bush’s attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey Tuesday morning.

The vote in the committee was 11 to 8, with two Democrats, Sen. Charles Schumer, of New York and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, of California, supporting Bush’s nominee.

The committee vote ensures that Mukasey's nomination will make its way to the Senate floor and that he'll be confirmed.

On the issue that held up the nomination — the practice known as waterboarding — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said during Tuesday's Judiciary Committee meeting that waterboarding is illegal. He denounced Mukasey for not declaring it to be illegal.

But Sen. Arlen Specter, R- Pa., said the Senate had a chance to specifically ban CIA use of waterboarding last year and voted to not do so. "It really is up to the Congress.... We're the people who ought to decide it," Specter said.

Mock near-drowning
A day earlier, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, an actor from Woodbine, Md., underwent a gruesome mock near-drowning for the news cameras in front of the Justice Department building Monday.

Coughing and gasping, he told reporters, “when water goes into your lungs you want to scream but you can’t, because you know as soon as you do, you’re going to choke. I was terrified for my life.”

This sidewalk political theater performance was a gesture of frustration from Bush administration foes, irate over last Friday’s decision by Schumer and Feinstein to support Mukasey.

In a letter to the Judiciary Committee last week Mukasey wrote that he had not been briefed on interrogation methods that are being used by the CIA and thus didn’t know if waterboarding is being used. His refusal to declare it illegal angered many Bush administration foes.

Their fury grew when Schumer and Feinstein revealed Friday that they’d back Mukasey.

Democrat's support called 'unconscionable'
After Schumer’s announcement Friday, a Daily Kos blogger wrote, “This is unconscionable.”

“Wow, thanks for selling us out, guys,” another poster on Daily Kos wrote.

“Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein just green-lighted torture,” claimed blogger Philip Baruth at the Vermont Daily Briefing.

For “Big Tent Democrat” at the web site Talk Left, the headline was, “Schumer and Feinstein Say Yes to Waterboarding.”

MSNBC video   Mukasey on waterboarding Oct. 18: During a confirmation hearing, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey refused to say if waterboarding was unconstitutional. MSNBC's Tamron Hall reports. MSNBC

“I never want to hear Schumer pontificate about anything again,” wrote “Big Tent Democrat.”

According to the dissident group Democrats.com, Schumer and Feinstein “embraced waterboarding and dictatorship by announcing their support for Mukasey. But Mukasey's nomination can be defeated if 40 Democrats support a filibuster — and it takes just one Senator to start one.”

No filibuster in view
But as of Monday afternoon, no Democratic senator had indicated that he or she would launch a filibuster, which would kill the nomination by blocking it from coming to a vote.

Clark Kissinger, a veteran left-wing activist and one of the organizers of Monday’s mock waterboarding event, said he wasn’t surprised that Schumer and Feinstein pushed Mukasey’s nomination over the top.

“The modus operandi of the Democrats has been to allow their presidential candidates to come out against evil, while the Democrats assured that there were enough votes in Congress to ensure that the evil progressed,” he said.

“They hold out the carrot to Democratic voters that maybe there’ll be some changes if Democrats get elected.”

Ebrahimzadeh said he agreed to play the waterboarding victim because he wanted “people to see exactly what it is before they come to a full understanding.”

He said he was “very much surprised” that Feinstein and Schumer would support Mukasey. “This is supposed to be a democracy; we elect people who are supposed to represent us and represent our beliefs.”

He said he did think things would change once the Democrats took control of Congress last January. “I had a bit more faith” right after the 2006 elections, he said. “And I’m a bit disappointed.”

But it is not certain whether there will be any negative effect on Democrats’ chances in 2008, that the sense of letdown will impair fundraising or voter turnout.

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