Wonder What BushCo Has On Feinstien?

...or has she just gone bonkers?

Why bother to have an AG a all when we live in a lawless land?

The Tortured Vote of Feinstein on Mukasey: Disingenuous or Just Plain Dishonest?

Submitted by mark karlin on Sun, 11/04/2007 - 1:28pm. Analysis

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

So why is Dianne Feinstein going to vote for Mukasey as Attorney General after he gave responses on waterboarding, torture and unitary authority that were right out of the White House Q and A response book?

For Feinstein, perhaps it is that she is a disingenuous RepubliCrat. She has defected the Democrats on more key votes in the senate and the Judiciary Committee than you can shake a stick at. Most recently, she was the sole Democratic defection on Judiciary that allowed the nomination of the Neo-Confederate Leslie Southwick to get to the floor for a positive vote. In short, another Bush Administration bigoted partisan judge will take a seat on the federal bench because of Feinstein.

Some argue that Feinstein (who at one time was the Mayor of San Francisco, and who – along with Pelosi – makes us think sometimes that the worst thing for progressive politics is a rich SF "liberal") is essentially trading her votes for contracts that her husband receives from the government. Some argue that she is just so wealthy, Washington establishment-like, and out of touch with her obligation to the Constitution, that she votes for people whom she feels are of the same "class" of D.C. insiders as she has become.

But what most disturbs us about the Feinstein pledge of support for Mukasey is a commentary she had published in the LA Times on November 3 providing the "rationale" for her vote. There’s only one big problem with Feinstein’s message to the voters; it’s specious at best.

Feinstein quotes Makasey to show how he is allegedly opposed to the Bush Administration using waterboarding:

"I do know ... that waterboarding cannot be used by the United States military because its use by the military would be a clear violation of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA). That is because waterboarding and certain other coercive interrogation techniques are expressly prohibited by the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, and Congress specifically legislated in the DTA that no person in the custody or control of the Department of Defense (DOD) or held in a DOD facility may be subject to any interrogation techniques not authorized and listed in the manual."

Then Feinstein comments, "As Judge Mukasey wrote, waterboarding is clearly against the law for the American military. Waterboarding is clearly prohibited by the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Convention. It was again prohibited by the Detainee Treatment Act, which only covers military interrogations."

There’s the rub, Dianne, since "waterboarding" as apparently conducted by the Bush Administration is carried out by the CIA or "subcontractors," not technically by the Pentagon. As long as Mukasey doesn’t declare that it is illegal across the board, his response is condoning the use of waterboarding – and likely tipping his hat that other coercive techniques amounting to torture would be sanctioned by the DOJ.

Feinstein knows this full well. In fact, way back to when Ashcroft was still AG -- and the torture revelations were first breaking -- a Washington Post article reported on June 9, 2004: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the memo on interrogation techniques permissible for the CIA to use on suspected al Qaeda operatives ‘appears to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow prohibitions against it.’ The document was prepared by the Justice Department's office of legal counsel for the CIA and addressed to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales."

The reporters noted in the next paragraph: "The 50-page Justice Department memo said inflicting physical or psychological pain might be justified in the war on terrorism ‘to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network.’ It added that ‘necessity and self defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability.’"

Now we are getting to the heart of Feinstein’s betrayal of justice. Mukasey’s White House scripted evasion on waterboarding and torture was designed to set him up for eventually exonerating Bush Administration officials of illegal criminal actions, once he "sees" the classified files concerning Bush Administration sanctioned torture.

Feinstein claims that it is up to Congress to close any loopholes on torture, an unlikely scenario in the foreseeable future (and she knows it), which in any case would almost certainly not be retroactive.

So Feinstein is essentially arguing that the role of the Attorney General is not to act like an Attorney General. She is helping Bush, Cheney and others receive a "get out of jail free card."

We came across two articles this weekend, at the same time Feinstein had her prepared justification for the Mukasey confirmation published, which in essence exposed her disingenuous "reasoning." An Associated Press November 4th analysis has as its very first paragraph: "Senate confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general has snagged on a complex legal question of whether some Bush administration officials would face lawsuits or war crimes charges if, as Democrats insist, he defines waterboarding as torture."

In the Washington Post on Sunday, a law professor penned an op-ed entitled "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime." Besides noting the excruciating details of waterboarding (which he says is not near-drowning, but drowning that is controlled not to end in death, even though it sometimes, of course, does), he points out that we prosecuted enemy soldiers for conducting waterboarding on captured American soldiers in WW II.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic to the nation that Feinstein concludes her LA Times op-ed with this less than believable "I’m-just-a-Pollyanna-style-of-gal" statement: "The bottom line is this: I hope that Judge Mukasey will fairly and evenhandedly represent the American people and direct the Justice Department wherever the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates."

Of course, the clear and transparent reality is that the White House did dictate Mukasey’s answers on waterboarding and torture. They were straight from the Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington script.

The senior senator from California should know that, shouldn’t she?

Dianne Feinstein is much too smart to play that dumb.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Mulkasey Compares U.S. Torture To Nazis

By: Steve Benen @ 6:00 PM - PDT

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey’s confirmation hearings got underway this morning, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) explored Mukasey’s position on administration torture policies. His response was surprising.

Not only did Michael Mukasey repudiate the so-called 2002 “torture memo” signed by Office of Legal Counsel chief Jay Bybee — which appears to have survived in spirit, if not in letter — but he compared U.S. torture to the Holocaust. […]

The Bybee memo is “worse than a sin, it’s a mistake,” Mukasey said. He referenced the photographs taken by U.S. troops who liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1945 to document the “barbarism” the U.S. opposed. “They didn’t do that so that we could then duplicate it ourselves.” Beyond legal restrictions barring torture clearly, torture is “antithetical to everything this country stands for.”

Greg Sargent had the same reaction I did — weren’t Republicans apoplectic when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said something similar two years ago?

One suspects the ensuing firestorm to Mukasey’s remarks will be a little less intense (which is to say, non-existent).

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Se. Leahy on Mulkasey Nomination

Restoring the rule of law October 18, 2007 By SEN. PATRICK LEAHY

Following is the text of the opening statement by Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general: Early this year, as we began our consideration of the United States attorney firing scandal, I observed that we faced the most serious threat to the effectiveness and professionalism of the United States Department of Justice since the days of the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Nixon forced the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox. I noted that unlike during Watergate, this time there was no Elliot Richardson or William Ruckelshaus around to defend the independence of federal prosecutors. Instead, high officials at the department and their staffs were complicit with White House political operatives. Now, the entire senior leadership and their staffs have resigned, as have Karl Rove and his two top aides at the White House. The crisis of leadership that led to these resignations has taken a heavy toll on the tradition of independence that had long guided the Department of Justice and protected it from political influence. The firing of the U.S. attorneys, who are the chief federal law enforcement officers in their districts, sent a message to all U.S. attorneys and the career prosecutors working in those offices that only "loyal Bushies" would keep their jobs or advance in their careers. This crisis has taken a heavy toll in morale at the department and in confidence among the American people. As a former prosecutor I know that the dismay runs deep, from the career attorneys at Justice and in our U.S. attorney offices, straight down to the cops on the beat. I start this hearing as I did the hearing this committee held on the last attorney general nomination, hoping to be able to support the nominee. After that hearing in 2005, I decided that I could not vote for the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales. I did so noting, as Justice James Iredell had in 1792, that the person who serves as attorney general "is not called attorney general of the president, but attorney general of the United States." There is good reason why the rule of law requires that we have an attorney general and not merely a secretary of the Department of Justice. This is a different kind of Cabinet position, distinct from all the others, and it requires greater independence. The departing attorney general never understood this. Instead, he saw his role as a facilitator for this White House's overreaching policies and partisan politics. Restoring the Department of Justice begins by restoring integrity and independence to the position of attorney general of the United States. The attorney general's duty is to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law — not to work to circumvent it. Both the president and the nation are best served by an attorney general who gives sound advice and takes responsible action, without regard to political considerations — not one who develops legalistic loopholes to serve the ends of a particular administration. The attorney general cannot interpret our laws to mean whatever the current president wants them to mean. The attorney general is supposed to represent all of the American people, not just one of them. Regrettably, the former attorney general enabled this administration to continue policies that are in fundamental conflict with American values, decades of law, sound military practice, international law, and human rights. We see it demonstrated, yet again, in the recent revelation that even after waging and losing a public battle to resist congressional efforts to outlaw torture and honor our obligations, this administration, enabled by the Justice Department, apparently secretly doubled back to redefine "torture" and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" to allow the very conduct Congress had outlawed. We have seen departures from this country's honorable traditions, practices, and established law in connection with interrogation methods that we condemn when they are used by others. Likewise, we have seen political influence corrupt the Department of Justice when it has departed from its longstanding practices and tradition, practices that historically serve to insulate it from partisanship in law enforcement. This lawlessness led to Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and Blackwater. And valuing loyalty over competence and accountability led to the bumbling aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the failure to care for wounded veterans at Walter Reed, and the purge among U.S. attorneys. There is much that has gone wrong that this administration has stubbornly refused to admit or correct. When President Bush ascribed Attorney General Gonzales' resignation to supposed "unfair treatment' and having "his good name ... dragged through the mud for political reasons," he mischaracterized the clear facts about a U.S. attorney firing scandal that has decimated morale at the Department of Justice. To reclaim our moral leadership, we need to acknowledge wrongdoing. These hearings are about a nomination, but these hearings are also about accountability. We need a new attorney general. We need someone who understands that the responsibilities and duties of that office are not to act as a mouthpiece or validator for the administration, or as the chief defense lawyer for the White House. We are reminded by the examples of Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus from the Watergate era — and more recently the examples of James Comey, Jack Goldsmith, and Alberto Mora — that law enforcement officials must enforce the law without fear or favor to their benefactors at the White House or their political party. We have now seen what happens when the rule of law plays second fiddle to a president's policy agenda and the partisan desires of political operatives. We are the most powerful nation on earth, the most powerful nation the world has ever known, a country that cherishes liberty and human rights, a nation that has been a beacon of hope and freedom to the world. We face vicious enemies, and we need the confidence and the resolve to understand that we can and must defeat them without sacrificing our values and stooping to their level. This is a job interview for a big job that has become even bigger. Along with helping keep Americans safe, protecting their rights, combating crime and enforcing the law, and managing more than 100,000 employees and a budget extending into the tens of billions of dollars, the next attorney general must regain public trust and begin the process of repair and restoration. This nomination can begin the repair process. I hope all members of the Judiciary Committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, will join to restore the constitutional checks and balances that have been systematically eroded by this administration, and I hope that we can begin that process this week. I welcome the nominee and urge him to answer our questions so that we can join together in restoring the Department of Justice to be worthy of its name. The American people expect and deserve no less.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.