Like a Cheap Accordion

I swear this is true -- immediately after reading the list of Judiciary Committee members (Whitehouse, Durbin, Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy) who had declared their opposition to Mukasey's nomination, and looking over the remaining Democratic names, I locked on Feinstein and Schumer. I point this out not as verification of my prowess, but as an indicator of how tiresomely predictable they really are.

While acknowledging serious concerns about his views on interrogation techniques, Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles E. Schumer of New York said they would vote to confirm Mukasey when the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up his nomination to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales on Tuesday.

In separate statements Friday afternoon, the lawmakers praised the 66-year-old New Yorker for his legal heft and independence and said they believed he would be a powerful antidote for the Justice Department, still reeling from Gonzales' two-year, politically charged tenure.

"First and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales," Feinstein said. "Rather, he has forged an independent life path as a practitioner of the law and a federal judge."

Jesus Christ, lady, no one asked if he was a ball-gagged leather-slave like Abu G. The question was whether he countenanced the wink-and-a-nod policy toward a technique for which people were tried at Nuremberg. That Bush was going to nominate another butt-boy was never in doubt; that he's a more qualified butt-boy than Gonzales is largely irrelevant, not that Gonzo's lack of quals stopped him in the first place.

Implicit in Feinstein's assurances is that if they knew then what they know now, they would never have voted to confirm Gonzales. Okay, fine. Here's an opportunity to prove that, and what do you do? You capitulate, once again, without even trying, happy with some closed-office concession from Mukasey that means practically nothing.

"Judge Mukasey is not my ideal choice," Schumer said. But, he said, Mukasey was "far better than anyone could expect from this administration."

But that's only because this administration would dig up John Wayne Gacy and make the Democrats suck on it if they could. Look, I can empathize with Schumer's dilemma, and his point. How many of them would now confirm a bird-brain like Harriet Miers, just to avoid Strip Search Sammy Alito? Mukasey is almost certainly the best-foot-forward nominee here; after that they'll dig up some inbred psychopath to tell us we can't handle the truth.

And hell, maybe they're right about that. Suddenly this inane argument over whether we torture or not has consumed what passes for the public debate, as if we hadn't coddled and bankrolled utter monsters for decades in the name of anti-communism. Just because we used to be more circumspect about subbing out the wet work doesn't absolve us from turning a blind eye to what our proxy torturers and dictators did to their dissenters for many years.

But now we're getting a conscience about it. Give me a fuckin' break.

"This is an extremely difficult decision," he said Friday. "When an administration so political, so out of touch with the realities of governing and so contemptuous of the rule of law is in charge, we are never left with an ideal choice."

And that's why we keep getting stuck with incompetent assholes, meat-puppets installed to maintain the administration's will to power, and only that. Instead of growing a pair and telling Bush that they will unceremoniously squash every toady he trots before them -- because, see, they're the majority party with all the committee chairmanships, and he's a 30% loser with a short-bus fan base and a year left in office -- they meekly offer bromides about compromise and bipartisanship. And gosh, Mikey told Chuckie in private that he'd never put up with gambling at the casino. I assume they BFF'd each other's binders and went back to class after that, with only a shit-eating smirk between them to let on about their dirty little secret.

Very well. Again, no surprises here. Nobody in this administration was ever going to be prosecuted by an American legislator anyway, retroactively or otherwise. Perhaps some enterprising judge in Spain or France may eventually make a post-Pinochet stab at it, but even then it seems unlikely.