The New Republic, January 31, 2008 Attorney General Michael Mukasey frustrated Democrats yesterday when he refused, again, to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee whether water-boarding counts as torture or is otherwise prohibited by law. At the committee hearing, he declared the question hypothetical, since the CIA no longer uses the tactic. And he declared as […]
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The Mukasey Ultimatum
The New Republic, October 27. 2009 At his recent Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, would-be attorney general Michael Mukasey sounded at times positively Alberto Gonzales-like. Pressed on whether waterboarding, an interrogation technique in which interrogators strap the subject to a plank and pour water over his face to create the sensation of drowning, counts as torture, […]
The Democrats and Bush Don’t Really Disagree Much on FISA
The New Republic, October 15, 2007 For all the fire-breathing rhetoric we can expect to hear about modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the coming months, last week’s introduction by House Democrats of their bill on the subject makes one thing abundantly clear: The Democrats and the Bush administration aren’t very far apart.
Mukasey is the Right Attorney General—Seven Years Too Late
The New Republic, September 18, 2007 There is one big problem with President Bush’s nomination of retired Federal District Judge Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States: It comes seven years too late. Mukasey has been an excellent judge–independent, tough, and fair-minded. His handling of the case of Jose Padilla, when the […]
Congress, The Attorney General and The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
The New Republic, August 6, 2007 One of the problems with having a dissembling attorney general is that it becomes difficult for his administration to move agenda items that rely to any degree on his credibility–even when they might have merit. In his recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alberto Gonzales provoked bipartisan rage […]
James Comey’s Damning Testimony
The New Republic, May 17. 2007 The scene former Deputy Attorney General James Comey described to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday was the stuff of Hollywood movies: a frantic race between White House and Justice Department officials to the hospital room of John Ashcroft; a dramatic showdown at the gravely ill man’s bedside, in […]
Alberto Gonzales Digs Himself a Deeper Hole
The New Republic, May 14, 2007 I want to ask how the U.S. attorney termination list came to be, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the outset of Thursday’s oversight hearing. ‘Who suggested putting most of these U.S. attorneys on the list and why?’ It’s a perfectly reasonable […]
Who Should Replace Alberto Gonzales?
The New Republic, April 2, 2007 Alberto Gonzales is toast. He apparently doesn’t realize this. President Bush doesn’t either. But Gonzales’ tenure as attorney general—or, at least, as an effective attorney general—is already over. Every day he fails to resign he disserves Bush, the Justice Department, and the public at large. Every day Bush lets […]
Marital Differences
The Atlantic Magazine, May 2006 Will this year’s midterm elections feature a new raft of state ballot initiatives to ban same-sex marriage? Definitely. Voters in eighteen states have already passed such bans, and the ballot initiatives have proven to be a major base-mobilizer for conservatives—so this year, there will be more. At least six states—Alabama, […]
Supreme Irony
The Atlantic Magazine, November 2004 According to a New York Times editorial, George Bush says that if re-elected, he would “try to finish packing the [Supreme] Court against Roe v. Wade, the decision validating abortion rights, which four members say they want to strike down.” If voters elect a Democratic President, the Republican candidate predicts, […]
Benjamin Wittes 