Today the Senate Judiciary Committee, its members still outraged at the fact that Mukasey has told them to stuff it on investigating the CIA or anything else, are now going through the same dance with the fellow he’s chosen to be his deputy. Mark Filip, who helped Bush steal the election in Florida, is everyone agrees, just the nicest guy. But will he commit to respecting Congressional prerogatives? Well, there he gets a bit fuzzy, and on the “is waterboarding torture” question, well he just has to defer to his boss, whose still thinking about it. Maybe, just maybe, Mukasey should undergo the procedure himself. That might help him make up his mind.
For better or worse, the waterboarding question has become emblematic of the contempt with which Congress is held by Bush and all his minions, and the confirmation process proves just how much that contempt is deserved. There seems to be no chance this fellow will be denied confirmation, even though everyone knows that once confirmed he will follow Mukasey’s lead and tell Congress that the actions of the executive are none of their business. Yet hope seems to spring eternal in the breasts of the assembled Senators, particularly Arlen Specter, who constantly decries the Administration’s lawlessness, yet constantly enables it.
Some highlights:
The nominee, Federal District Judge Mark F. Filip, said in response to senators’ questions that he considered waterboarding, which causes a drowning-like sensation in the person being questioned, to be “repugnant,” and that the issue for him is not an impersonal one.
“I don’t view that as some sort of abstract platitude,” said Judge Filip, who has been nominated to be deputy attorney general. “I had a grandfather who was in a German prisoner-of-war camp.”
More:
“That said,” the nominee went on, “the attorney general of the United States is presently reviewing that legal question.” With Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey studying the issue, Judge Filip said, “I don’t think I can or anyone who could be potentially considered for his deputy could get out in front of him on that question while it’s under review.”
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the panel’s ranking member, pushed Filip to agree that Congress had broad authority to launch investigations even as the Justice Department conducted its own. But Filip would not say that the department should defer to Congress. “I would hope, senator, not to have to pick between the two,” Filip said.
Would anyone like to make me a rich man and bet against me on two propositions:
1. Mukasey will not decide if waterboarding is torture until January 21, 2009, if ever.
2. Filip will choose between the two in a heartbeat, and he won’t be choosing Congress.
They all know it. He knows it. They know he knows it. And he knows that they know he knows it. And they all know, and he knows, that they’ll confirm him anyway.