Blame Chuck Schumer

Sorry, but there really is no other way around this. Schumer, if you will remember, was the Senator who really tipped the balance in favor of Mukasey, at a point when he made it clear that he had, at best, a very legalistic defintion of torture. I believe the phrase was something like, "If waterboarding is torture, then it's illegal." But he wouldn't accept that it was in fact torture. Anyway let's get to the essence:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is back on the Hill today, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee. Paul Kiel is covering it at TPMmuckraker.

So far, he's dropped two big bombshells. DOJ will not be investigating:

(1) whether the waterboarding, now admitted to by the White House, was a crime; or

(2) whether the Administration's warrantless wiretapping was illegal.

His rationale? Both programs had been signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department.

Who--after nearly a decade of Bush/Cheney--can act surprised by any of this? Schumer's decision was motivated by the same-old compromise/triangulation/weak-on-security school of thought that put us in Iraq from jump. I am so tired of this. If Hillary wins, expect her to campaign on this same weak mess--and get promptly trounced by McCain, a dude who knows the difference between being a real thug, and playing the role of a fake, scared thug. Real gangsters don't triangulate. They liquidate.