Schumer, Feinstein Decide To Support Mukasey
Their reasoning? Mukasey would respect a law that bans waterboarding. Here’s Schumer justifying his position:
“I deeply oppose it,” Schumer said of waterboarding. “Unfortunately, this nominee, indeed any proposed by President Bush, will not agree with this. I am, however, confident that this nominee would enforce a law that bans waterboarding.”
Here’s Feinstein doing the same:
This afternoon, I met with Judge Michael Mukasey one more time. I requested the meeting to address, in person, some of my concerns. 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.
The funny thing about these positions they’re taking is that it exposes the fact that the Democrats have been grandstanding on the waterboarding issue the entire them. They’ve been castigating the Bush administration for engaging in waterboarding for years, yet ever since the 2006 elections put them in the majority they’ve had the power to end the practice.
That’s right. While the President is the commander-in-chief of the military, it’s Congress that writes the rules for the military. Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution states that “The Congress shall have Power… To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.” Traditionally, this has always meant that the various regulations and procedures the military abides by get approved by Congress. So if Congress wants to outlaw the practice of waterboarding, or any other interrogation technique for that matter, they can do it.
But apparently the Democrats care more about using waterboarding as a weapon against the Bush administration than actually stopping it, which would take nothing more than passing some legislation. Something they haven’t even tried to do.
