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Earlier in the day I speculated that perhaps Sen. Schumer to justify his vote for Judge Mukasey was looking for a fig leaf in the form of a promise that Mukasey would enforce a law banning waterboarding if Congress managed to pass it and the President signed it. Indeed this suggests that is precisely the dance that took place in a meeting between Schumer and Mukasey today. Schumer is quoted as saying: "the judge made clear to me that, were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority ... [and] he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution." Even the NY Times dryly notes that Schumer "did not address the possibility that Mr. Bush would veto any such legislation." This of course was not the issue on which Democrats opposed Mukasey -- it was his refusal to declare waterboarding, a practice believed not to be in use currently, illegal in the absence of any specific statute outlawing this practice. But a contrived issue deserves a contrived ending which is what we got.

topics:
Constitution, Law