Goddamn it.
Michael Mukasey drew closer to becoming attorney general Friday after two key Senate Democrats said they would vote for him despite his refusal to define an interrogation technique that stimulates drowning as torture.
The decision by Sens. Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein came shortly after the chairman of the committee, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced he would vote against Mukasey, a former federal judge.
“This is an extremely difficult decision,” Schumer said in a statement, adding that Mukasey “is not my ideal choice.”
In announcing her support for Mukasey, Feinstein, D-Calif., said “first and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales.”
I have nothing but the utmost contempt for Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein. I am not even going to say what I think of them.
i like the typo: ‘stimulates drowning’.
Well, I’ll try and say it for you in ladylike terms booman..how bout the ever popular ‘fuck off and die’..then again I have never been accused of speaking in ladylike language.
Haven’t used this one in awhile, seems an appropriate message to send to the torture apologists:
Fuck Schumer and Feinstein. Hard.
there wasn’t much doubt where this was going.
lTMF’sA
>>In announcing her support for Mukasey, Feinstein, D-Calif., said “first and foremost, Michael Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales.”
the political version of a non-sequitur
It’s not an election; AlGon is gone. it’s not a him or him question. It’s a Mukasey or not-Mukasey question. How do you get it wrong?
I tend to control my anger/rage feelings quite well. This situation is one in which I find myself losing control! I can’t seem to stop shaking my head…
Any doubt that there are about a dozen other Democrat senators that hare glad Feinstein and Schumer are doing this and taking the heat for them? Clinton. Cough. Cough. Obama. Now the other Democrats get to say they were opposed to Mukasey but they just couldn’t stop it so you crazy looney lefties just can’t be pleased!
hey Boo- there is a common thread here- AIPAC- schumer, feinstein, feingold, cardin!!!!!!!!!
What the hell is it with Feinstein? I know she’s always been marginally a Dem, but lately she seems to be jockeying to be the new Lieberman. I can’t imagine she represents CA’s views at all these days.
It’s not just lately, she has been moving right ever since she married a right wing banker and became a long term member of congress. DiFi needs a competent opponent in a primary, but she is so much a part of modern california history that no one will take her on.
I can’t believe my icon has turned into my nightmare. It makes me sick. But, as you know, power corrupts absolutely, and even DiFi is corruptible.
Worms!
It has been a long season of betrayal for all of us.
This should not surprise us, nor break our hearts, but only serve to strengthen our resolve to fight the good fight.
I’m pretty incensed as well. Can’t the democrats stand up for anything? When I heard the news (was watching MSNBC at the gym, as it happens), my immediate, gut reaction was, “the democrats are no longer my party.” I don’t know why this particular issue sent me over the edge, but it did.
me too.
what’s the difference between repubrats and demrats?
No Incumbents in ’08.
Dianne Feinstein is the worst obfuscater and judge of character in these United States, from her ex-husband, to Dan White, and now this. I guess Bush told her he’d unleash the hounds on her and her husband’s legal and illegal assets if she wouldn’t budge.
Schumer? So much spinelessness in one body. His clock needs to be cleaned.
Both of these people are educated. They’re also Jews. Don’t they know that Bush just wants to keep torturing and murdering? Don’t they know that the clock is ticking on this Weimar of a republic? They keep saying that it can’t happen here, but it is, right here and now. And you would think people would stand up and put the skids on this kind of thing en masse, but no.
Case in point: Project Censored just came out with its list of 25 stories that haven’t been talked about in the mainstream media. Number four is the fact that nearly 30,000 people have been disappeared by Gonzo’s Justice in this country.
All of these nitwit Dems running for president had better get a clue now. Quit fucking triangulating. Quit fucking trying to out-Reagan Repubs. The time is past for this madness. I won’t support any candidate that wants Bush business as usual.
I left the Democratic party last fall over this issue. They did the same thing when they passed the Military Commissions Act (i.e. caved, or cut and run). As Greenwald pointed out today the whole opposition to Mukasey was a case of too little too late.
Makes me wonder if the opposition to Mukasey was simply a ploy to allow some Democrats to say they were against torture. You know, maybe one last attempt to convince us (and maybe themselves) that they actually care that America tortures. But nah, they really don’t care that much.
So I refuse to vote for a party that allows torture. It doesn’t matter that the Democrats are less evil than the Republicans–I can’t be part of a party that accepts torture. If you are a great candidate that I agree with on 90% of the issues, like Kucinich is for me, but you allow America to torture, I will not vote for you even if you are better than the other guy. No politician or party that accepts torture gets my vote.
Shame on the Democratic party. It will never recover from this sorry episode in my estimation.
I agree 100%. I’m determined to punish the Democrats for their complicity in 2008. Not one cent, not one second of my time, not even my vote. Fuck them. Can there even be any doubt that they are 100% complicit?
As far as Schumer and Feinstein go: I wish them an incurable case of ultra-resistant syphilis.
I swear I’ll jump!
Goddamn it!
I do believe in Karma. I do, I do, I do believe in Karma. I do. Please. I do.
C’mon Karma.
Is there any reason left to support Democrats? It appeared that they would hold this up, now they start to cave. I won’t send them another cent. The 50 state strategy, why bother?
Right now I am shaking with anger and disgust – so forgive me if I am not as coherent as I should be.
Is there anyway the Progressive blogosphere can unite and start a campaign to make an example of these two Fascist pigs. What I have in mind is:
I am so upset that I want to do something – anything to let those Cretins in DC know we mean business- and we are not going to take it anymore!
hey boo- what do I see? are you saying that you are leaving the party? Naaaah! that can’t be true. Can it?
I hate talking to strangers on the phone. It’s perhaps my least favorite thing to do in the world. But as soon as I heard this, I picked up the phone and called Feinstein’s local office. I gave her staffer an earful. I said, look, I elect Democrats in part because they ARE Democrats. I want and expect them to tow the party line in matters of great importance. How dare she? What was her reasoning??
When the staffer had no answer, I went on.
Feinstein is also the author of a really HORRIBLE bill on voting reform. You all know how much I care about this issue. It’s been my every other post for probably the last couple of years now, in one forum or another. I’m in favor of incremental legislation, if that’s all we can get. But hers is so bad that without significant changes, EVEN I who so desperately wants federal legislation could not bring myself to recommend it. It doesn’t require paper ballots. It doesn’t require a meaningful audit, and it allows the audit to be conducted behind the scenes, in private, which hardly does anything to inspire confidence that our votes are being counted as cast. So I gave the staffer an earful on that too, and said she should dump her own lousy bill and support the much better bill from Sen. Bill Nelson, one which, unlike hers, has a real chance of protecting our vote.
I talked to another livid activist in town, who is one of the nicest people you could ever meet .He never raises his velvet smooth voice, never changes his serene expression. Yet this activist told the staffer that he is part of the problem. He said look, Feinstein is nothing more than a Bush enabler. But by working for her, you’re a Feinstein enabler. If you had any loyalty to the party and what we stand for, you’d resign today.
We’re all faced with hard choices sooner or later. Not everyone can afford to quit, to be sure. But surely it would help if she felt the wrath of her own normally loyal staff on this matter. She’s wrong. DEAD FLAT OUT WRONG. There is no excuse in this matter.
I hope you all call Feinstein and Schumer and shame them too. Outrageous.
I live in a district that got a Democratic Congressman in office by 1500 votes.
A district where Democrats have been picking up more seats, a district where the party is highly organized.
Until last year’s election, activists could bring the public attention to the war, to social security issues, to torture, etc.
Now we can do nothing because not one group, peace and justice included will demonstrate or hassle an elected Democrat.
As long as the Democratic victories mean that activists will be silenced….Schumer and Feinstein’s support of the MCA will go unchallenged in any serious way.
Pissed off? Start thinking about how much habeus corpus means to you, start worrying about who you know who could “disappear,” and start asking why any elected official would willingly give up the powers that Bush has passed on to them without a fight.
The next President of the U.S. will inherit an imperial presidency with unchecked powers, no access to the International Courts and the freedom to arrest and detain indefinitely without charges any American citizen.
If this isn’t the America you want to live in and raise your children in….then start thinking about what is more important…loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law or party loyalty.
Nothing surprising about this. According to Steve Clemons, who is no firebrand, Schumer was lobbying fellow Democrats on behalf of the nefarious John Bolton.
Every time I get an email from Senator Schumer, I am reminded of his support of John Bolton’s confirmation in the 2nd push the administration made on Bolton during the Israel-Lebanon conflagration. Several — yes more than three — U.S. Senators told me personally that Schumer was telling them “a vote against Bolton is a vote against Israel.”
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002212.php