Does Mr. Dershowitz have legitimate credentials to weigh in on Mukasy's position regarding waterboarding? I'm amazed that so many people seem to have drawn an absolute conclusion about waterboarding and what interrogation tactics the U.S. is using. Apparently for many folks that responed in this thread, Mukasy's position is unreasonable. Alan Dershowitz wrote an Op Ed piece that appears in todays WSJ. The Opinion Journal is free site that posted his op ed piece.
Democrats and Waterboarding
From the op ed piece:
This brings us to waterboarding. Michael Mukasey, whose confirmation as attorney general now seems assured, is absolutely correct, as a matter of constitutional law, that the issue of "waterboarding" cannot be decided in the abstract. Under prevailing precedents--some of which I disagree with--the court must examine the nature of the governmental interest at stake, and the degree to which the government actions at issue shock the conscience, and then decide on a case-by-case basis. In several cases involving actions at least as severe as waterboarding, courts have found no violations of due process.
So Mr. Dershowitz believes that Mukasy's position is correct hmmm........
He writes further:
The members of the judiciary committee who voted against Judge Mukasey, because of his unwillingness to support an absolute prohibition on waterboarding and all other forms of torture, should be asked the direct question: Would you authorize the use of waterboarding, or other non-lethal forms of torture, if you believed that it was the only possible way of saving the lives of hundreds of Americans in a situation of the kind faced by Israeli authorities on the eve of Yom Kippur? Would you want your president to authorize extraordinary means of interrogation in such a situation? If so, what means? If not, would you be prepared to accept responsibility for the preventable deaths of hundreds of Americans?
Anyway I think it's fairly clear at this point that the likes of Senator Leahy are just undergoing an excercise in political posturing in the reasons for not supporting Mukasy's nomination. The Democrats opposition to Bush seems to influence some Democrats to take ridiculous positions at times. This is certainly one of them. Senator Schumer stated that he reluctantly voted to send the Mukasy nomination to the Senate. I guess he had no other option but to support Mukasy since he actually recommended Mukasy to Bush. Dershowitz discusses the stupidity of the Democrats in his op ed piece btw.