Not surprisingly, Senator Kerry has no intention of allowing Mr. Mukasey to be confirmed as U.S. Attorney General:

Judge Mukasey’s refusal to classify the barbaric practice of waterboarding as torture waves a red flag about his nomination to serve an Administration that has adhered to the Cheney doctrine on executive power and torture.

I am not comfortable confirming anyone who cannot see that this method of interrogation is antithetical to American values and traditions — especially not to a position that is charged with representing our entire justice system. We need to re-establish faith in the Department of Justice.

Many of us wanted to believe that Judge Mukasey could undo the damage of the Gonzales years. Unfortunately his lack of candor and his refusal to acknowledge this abuse of power suggest he is unable or unwilling to do so, and this is why I will be opposing Judge Mukasey’s nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

Also not surprisingly, seeing that their choice for another complicit AG is in danger of being turned down, the Roadblock Republicans have turned to their minions in the media and their spokesbots in the conservative blogosphere for a full-court press in defense of Mr. Mukasey’s nomination. Their standard combination of obstructionism and obfuscation has managed to muddy the waters for many of their viewers/readers, leading liberal blogger and longtime Democratic activist Casey Morris to boil it back down to a more concise clarity in this post from the independent Democracy Cell Project website:

Since the media seems to be having difficulty in explaining the problem with the Mukasey nomination and his inability to call waterboarding torture, maybe a post-Gonzales civics lesson might help them.

Michael Mukasey was nominated by the President to be the Attorney General of the United States (USAG). The Attorney General’s job is to be the prosecuting attorney on behalf of the people of the United States. Unlike the egregious behavior of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, would suggest, he is not there to protect the President. He is not the President’s attorney. The White House Counsel is the President’s attorney for legal matters arising from his role as President of the United States. The Attorney General represents the people of the United States. Or should.

The USAG is the chief law enforcement officer of our federal laws and treaties. Were a crime, say for example, torture, to be committed, he would be obligated to prosecute those responsible. All of them. And therein lies the problem for USAG nominee, Judge Mukasey.

Should Judge Mukasey correctly identify waterboarding as torture, then he would have to prosecute any member of the Bush administration who knew of, approved, condoned, executed or threatened to use waterboarding on anyone.

Does Mukasey know that the CIA, at the direction of some member(s) of the Bush Administration used waterboarding? He says no, but his reluctance to define waterboarding as torture, suggests that he has reason to believe they did.

Simply put, Judge Mukasey doesn’t want to define waterboarding as torture, because then he would have to start investigating the CIA and the Bush Administration, and then prosecuting them.

This puts him in a bit of a dilemma, doesn’t it? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. This is more like amputating the hand that feeds you. And if investigations begin now, it’s entirely possible that charges may not be brought until after Bush is out of office. Buh-bye pardons. Buh-bye commutation of sentences.

This goes to the heart of what the problem is with the Mukasey nomination. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that was used in the Spanish Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in the Italian Inquisition to torture their prisoners. It was used in WWII by the Japanese government to torture their US prisoners of war, and was defined by our government then as torture. It is defined in the Geneva Conventions now as torture. Define waterboarding as torture, and you will likely have to start arresting members of the Administration.

That’s Mukasey’s dilemma.

Well, here’s my dilemma. The law isn’t some fashion that changes based on Who’s Your Daddy. The laws we have represent the moral agreements that we hold as a nation, citizen to citizen. They are our minimum daily requirements for civilized behavior. If Mukasey can’t define waterboarding as torture, then he’s either too stupid, too dishonest, or too immoral and he can get the hell out of my Justice Department.

Really, it’s just that simple. It’s so simple that even the simple-minded in the media can understand it. And if they can’t, it’s because they won’t.

We agree with Casey Morris that allowing Mr. Mukasey to become the next U.S. Attorney General would be just all kinds of wrong — and so do Senator Kerry, Senator Kennedy, Senator Biden, Senator Durbin, Senator Whitehouse, and an ever-growing list of other Senators and Representatives who believe that it’s high time to rein in the Bush administration’s rampant excesses and kick the Roadblock Republicans back to the curb where they belong.