Another Call to Senator Schumer
Ring…. Riiiiing
“hello, Senator Charles Schumer’s office…”
“Hi my name is Brendan Skwire. I’ve been reading a lot about AG Michael Mukasey this week. From what i understand, he told Senator Whitehouse he wasn’t leaning toward investigating allegations of torture, and told Senator Schumer that he wouldn’t support outlawing waterboarding, and told Diuck Durbin that “it’s unresolved” whether waterboarding is torture. Now, given the fact that Senator Schumer wrote a big editorial in the New York Times responding to those of us who were calling and asking him not to confirm Mukasey– after all it was due to Senator Schumer’s leadership and Diane Feinstein’s leadership that he was confirmed– I was wondering if there’s a new editorial pending, perhaps titled “My Bad, America” or maybe “Oopsie Daisey”. Do you know if any such editorials are pending?”
“No sire, to the best of my knowledge, there’s no such editorial planned.”
“Really? Doesn’t Senator Schumer owe the country an explanation? I mean, I can quote that editorial chapter and verse. Schumer said that Mukasey “he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it”, and that “Even without the proposed law in place, Judge Mukasey would be more likely than a caretaker attorney general to find on his own that waterboarding and other techniques are illegal.” He also said, “Judge Mukasey would do much to remove the stench of politics from the Justice Department.” But I think the last week or so have made it pretty clear that Mukasey isn’t going to do anything like what the Senator promised. He’s just a continuation of Alberto Gonzalez. Shouldn’t Senator Schumer want to explain why he was so incredibly wrong? Isn’t an explanation owed to the American people?”
“Umm… uhh. Umm, yeah, those ARE really good questions.”
“Could you make sure you write this down? I want to make sure that Senator Schumer knows that people are asking questions about his judgement.”
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Ummm…”
I could tell the guy was feeling really awkward: it’s difficult to realize that your boss made a REALLY big oopsie daisy. So I let him go.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:12 am
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