I don’t know if there ever has been such a thing as a truly honest administration in this country, but it sure used to be a helluva lot more honest than it is now, or has been in a very long time. The government is supposed to be there for us, the people, right? Ha. I haven’t believed that in a very long time.

If I haven’t said it before, let me say it now in no uncertain terms: I can’t stand Bush or his administration! In my humble and only somewhat politically-educated opinion, he has done nothing good for this country. Nothing. I can hardly wait for the next year to go by so his presidency will finally end forever!

With that off my chest, let me continue on to what this post is really about — Michael Mukasey. Late Thursday night the Senate approved the former judge’s nomination for Attorney General with a 53-40 vote, despite weeks of controversy over his views on waterboarding. According to CNN:

The nomination had been considered at risk after a number of Democratic senators opposed Mukasey because of questions that arose from his views on the terror interrogation technique known as waterboarding and the president’s power to order electronic surveillance.

Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, told senators he considers waterboarding “repugnant,” but he could not categorically say whether the technique amounts to torture, which U.S. and international law bans.

Waterboarding is a technique that involves restraining a suspect and pouring water on him to produce the sensation of drowning.

That makes me sick. I can NOT believe that someone — anyone — could and would say that waterboarding is repugnant, but not go as far as ADMITTING it is absolutely torture! I think they said it best at freep.com:

It really shouldn’t be tough for Michael Mukasey to admit that waterboarding is torture. When you pressure someone to cooperate with an interrogation by tying them to a board with their head lower than their feet, covering their face with a cloth and then pouring enough water into the cloth to make them think they’re drowning, what else would you call it?

But Mukasey, whose nomination to be the nation’s next attorney general was approved Tuesday by a key Senate committee, has called it everything but, including “repugnant.” But Mukasey says going any further would be rendering a legal opinion about a “hypothetical” technique, and he’s uncomfortable doing that.

Hypothetical? Are you kidding me??? As if!! But here’s the best — and what I consider the most important — part of the story (emphasis mine):

That’s a disappointing nonstand, to be sure. But Mukasey’s equivocations are not all his fault. Most of that responsibility lies at the feet of the Bush administration, which has taken the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror as an invitation to rewrite the nation’s moral code.

Now THAT is the truth!

It goes on to say:

Mukasey’s caginess is what you get after six years of waterboarding and talk of the “quaint” Geneva Conventions governing the humane treatment of captives, and efforts to debate the indefensible in the name of national security. This is what happens when those who are charged with upholding American values instead try to find ways around them.

That doesn’t let Mukasey completely off the hook. It would be wonderful if our attorney general could fess up that tactics embraced by Cambodia’s atrocious Khmer Rouge are indeed torture. But the Bush administration’s insistence that the law and human rights are fungible certainly explains his reluctance to speak so boldly.

Thanks to George W. Bush and his administration, we as a country and a military, have been forced to a level we have abhorred and denounced in others for decades and decades. It is pathetic, pitiful and criminal. It is shameful.

Oh, and in case there are some of you out there who don’t know what waterboarding is, you can go here and watch a 25 minute uncut video of correspondent Kaj Larsen receiving the TORTURE tactic from hired professional interrogators, but I warn you, it is very, very difficult to watch. In fact, I only made it through 2 minutes before I had to shut it off. I was left feeling literally sick to my stomach. I can’t believe there are people out there who actually are able to do that to another human being and don’t consider it torture. It’s incomprehensible to me. What’s even MORE incomprehensible is how our very own President can condone such tactics and NOT call it torture! Oh sure, he says he hasn’t “been briefed” about it and doesn’t know exactly what it is. What horse shit! Giuliani says the same thing! According to Blah3, Giuliani said:

“If you take a simplistic position on it, you’re probably irresponsible. I should not take a position on waterboarding until I know precisely what we’re talking about. If we’re talking about what the media says constitutes waterboarding, I have said that I think that’s repulsive. But I’ve also said that I have not been briefed on precisely what we do. I would want to keep an open mind until I heard that.”

How can they possibly plead ignorance??? For God’s sake, Bush is the president and Giuliani wants to be! Isn’t it their JOB to know?! Oh well, I guess it’s nothing new. We’ve come to expect it, haven’t we?

Yeah, I’m mad as hell about this, and believe me, I can hardly wait until Bush is out of office, and I pray a Democrat wins the election! Or better yet, Ron Paul!!!!

Bush, Waterboarding, Michael Mukasey, freep.com, CNN, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul