Great Moments in Contrarianism

Now that Michael Mukasey's fully outed himself as another pro-torture, anti-rule of law Attorney-General, Scott Lemieux reminds us of Ben Wittes' classic argument that Senators shouldn't care that Mukasey won't call illegal torture "illegal" or "torture" because "The Democrats have a big club to wield over Mukasey's head to make sure they don't get snookered: Without a strong working relationship with them, he won't be able to get anything done."

The main thing an Attorney-General is supposed to get done these days, however, is to help members of the Bush administration avoid legal accountability for criminal actions undertaken in years passed. He doesn't need any cooperation to do that job.