Judge Michael Mukasey's waltz to confirmation as attorney general has ground to a halt.(The Week ...)(Brief article)

Judge Michael Mukasey's waltz to confirmation as attorney general has ground to a halt. The issue is waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique that subjects detainees to simulated drowning. Democrats are threatening to withhold their support unless Mukasey denounces it as torture. Mukasey quite reasonably objects that he does not yet have access to the classified information he would need in order to know how waterboarding fits (or once fit, since it apparently isn't currently used) into the administration's interrogation program. He doesn't want to make an off-the-cuff judgment that might expose CIA interrogators who did their job in good faith to legal jeopardy. Waterboarding is certainly close to the line of torture (which, under U.S. law, is defined as an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering"). But it has long been used against our own military in ...