Mukasey Nomination

The nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to be the next Attorney General of the United States has been reported favorably from the Senate Judiciary Committee and now moves to the full Senate for its advice and consent.

The swing votes -- Democrats Feinstein and Schumer and Republican Specter -- voted to confirm Mukasey on the grounds that, if this candidate were to be rejected by the Senate, President Bush would either leave the position vacant or wait for a congressional to go home and then make a recess appointment that would carry him through most of the last 12 months of his term.

Bush can only hope that the forbearance of trial lawyers and the judiciary in the U.S. surpasses that of the lawyers in Pakistan who have taken to the streets to protest the firing and house arrest of Pakistan’s Supreme Court by General Mushariff.

One wonders, if Judge Mukasey is unable to declare unambiguously that water boarding is torture and is therefore illegal, whether there is any act that is so “objectively and inherently” criminal that even with a hypothetical scenario it would the act would be illegal prima facie.