This Torture Issue Isn't Very Complicated

Michael Mukasey was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the new United States attorney general. Six Democrats crossed party lines to vote in favor of Mukasey's confirmation, bringing the total to 53 to 44. The confirmation was controversial in large part because Mukasey refused to denounce the procedure known as waterboarding as torture. The tone of Mukasey's answers on the subject is probably best represented by a brief exchange with Rhode Island Democrat and fancily-named dandy Sheldon Whitehouse.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: So is waterboarding constitutional?

MICHAEL MUKASEY: I don't know what's involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.

Mukasey's confusion over the issue of waterboarding is completely understandable. It's not as if TV news has been discussing waterboarding for more than three years. It's not like he has access to some sort of amazing searchable network of information that could provide him with answers about "what is involved in the technique." People in his position don't have time for such things as time-consuming research. They have the real business of administering justice to worry about.

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