The Good and the Ugly

Feingold announces his opposition to Mukasey. Good, even if moot.

I hadn’t intended to write about the sellout by Feinstein and Schumer; it was too depressingly predictable. And, as my essay laying out the case against Mukasey acknowledged, it was as much about symbolism as anything; a good AG is not really an option (although in this case the symbolism is important.) But then Feinstein decided to defend her decision in op-ed form. And, as Elton sums it up:

I’m OK with using any amount of pain to extract information from suspects, as long as we don’t call it torture.

The whole thing is remarkable. Her implication that Mukasey didn’t dodge the key questions…I mean, you want to vote for him for pragmatic reasons, alright, but at least try not to insult our intelligence. And worse, she doesn’t seem to understand the contents of statutes she voted for. California really needs to do better.