Mukasey

I don't watch the news on television. So I don't know how much coverage the Mukasey nomination fight (if it can be called that) is getting. TPMMuckracker set up a vote tracker to follow the senators who are officially for and against his nomination. I think it's an important story because it gives our government the chance to make a stand against waterboarding, for all the world to see. Andrew Sullivan has a brilliant quote from Teddy Roosevelt which happens to pertain directly to waterboarding, and it's worth quoting again here:

"The president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, ... for the very reason that the president intends to back up the Army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work; he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that men who are guilty thereof are punished. Great as the provocation has been in dealing with foes who habitually resort to treachery, murder and torture against our men, nothing can justify or will be held to justify the use of torture or inhuman conduct of any kind on the part of the American Army...."

It's difficult to believe that we've fallen so far in the past fifty years that we even have a debate on this issue.