Bush and Schumer

by emptywheel

David Kurtz reports that the Mukasey nomination will come down to the Senate Judiciary Committee vote (and TPM is tracking votes so far). I believe this sets up some really interesting tension between Bush and Chuck Schumer.

You see, events thus far have made it very important for Bush to get Mukasey approved. While David Addington may have thought it in Bush's best interest to push Mukasey to adopt the party line, they're now at the place where, if Mukasey is rejected, it will be because of Bush's torture policy. (Frankly, this is unfortunate from a principled perspective, since it means that the Senators don't care about the unitary executive more generally, but it works to our advantage politically.) The press has spun the rising tension to be entirely about the issue of torture, which makes it inconceivable that, if Mukasey is rejected, the narrative will be anything but torture. Which will shine a bright light on the torture policy itself, and some Soccer Moms who might otherwise be ignorant that men are being tortured in their names may just discover that their government is doing reprehensible things.

Which is why Bush is so pissy about the doubts about Mukasey's appointment.

President Bush today sought to ratchet up pressure on Senate Democrats considering his nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be attorney general, saying that it was unfair and unwise of lawmakers to require the nominee to opine on details of a classified interrogation program.

Bush, in his most forceful remarks to date on the troubled nomination, strongly defended Mukasey for refusing to say whether he believed that coercive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, were illegal torture. The issue has become the defining question for Senate Democrats in advance of Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on whether to confirm the retired federal judge to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.

[snip]

Bush today said it was wrong of Democrats to make the confirmation dependent upon "details of a classified program he has not been briefed on."

Though his temper tantrum is only going to make it worse--it's going to make a Mukasey vote an upperdown vote on torture.

Unfortunately, I'm still pessimistic it'll go the way we'd like.

That's partly because DiFi pretty consistently disappoints Democrats at times like these.

But it's also because of the underlying tension regarding Chuck Schumer's role in this whole process. Chuck Schumer, of course, suggested Mukasey's name in the first place--Mukasey was Schumer's nominee first, and Bush's only afterwards. Which will make it very difficult for him to vote against Mukasey, not least because he no doubt represented to the White House that Mukasey--unlike Ted Olson and Laurence Silberman--would be confirmed. For now, Schumer's not showing his hand.

Most conspicuously silent was Mukasey’s fellow New Yorker,  Charles E. Schumer , who initially offered unusually warm praise for the nominee and did not come out against him this week as other Democrats attacked. Asked Wednesday about the nomination, Schumer would say only, “I’m reading the letter, going over it.”

But Schumer is a natural deal-maker. He's in the position where his role as dealmaker on judicial nominations will be in question if Mukasey is rejected. I suspect he's as troubled by Mukasey's head fake on torture as the other Senators (indeed, I suspect he'd be more concerned about the unitary executive issues than some other Senators). But he's also got his own honor at stake.

Let's hope he lets the Constitution trump his honor, just this once.

Comments

[BlueStateRedhead]

EW, I write just to say thank you once more. You shine the bright light of good historical reasoning and astute political and analysis on these dark subjects. I hope the SJC staffers are reading you right now.

That said, do you have a way to explain DiFi's moves, if we exclude the tinfoilhattish 'they have something on her husband' interpretation?

[nolo]

you are a juggernaut, EW!

a whole slew of fresh, largely-
unreported mukasey insights, last
night, and into this afternoon!

great stuff. . .

isn't it possible that schumer (and
perhaps, less-plausibly, di fi) have
settled on allowing a nominee that
is slightly better than the existing
full-on-political-hacks now helming
justice?

isn't it possible that this is less
about nefarious deals, and more about
trying to protect the rank-and-file
long enough to get to 2008?

the sad -- and least common denom-
ating -- end game may simply be to
get someone -- anyone -- in there,
before ALL the real talent is gone:
disgusted, departed -- and justice
is then decades (as opposed to years)
away from being the non-political
law enforcement arm, it once was. . .

possible?

i think so. tragic; but possible.

[eyesonthestreet]

Being originally from St. Louis, I always check and see what is on the front page of the venerable St. Louis Post Dispatch, to see if:

"some Soccer Moms who might otherwise be ignorant that men are being tortured in their names may just discover that their government is doing reprehensible things"

unfortunately, todays "Top Story" is

"A year later, couple still searching for lost dog"

http://www.stltoday.com/news

I kid you not. And it keeps reminding me why I left and stayed away.

[bmaz]

My money is on DiFi and Schumer selling out the Constitution and country. Straight up bet. Any takers?

[skdadl]

On the second day of Mukasey's testimony before the SJC, right at the end of Schumer's questions, did anyone else hear Schumer turn and say in an aside to a colleague or a staffer, "I'm so angry"?

I'd have to look at their exchange again to see whether there was anything obvious that early in the hearing to spark that comment, but it really struck me at the time.

[emptywheel]

skdadl

I was doing day job stuff at the moment. That's very curious--I wonder if Schumer felt like he'd been cheated by Mukasey?? Or bested by Bush.

[BlueStateRedhead]

I think this information is new to the discussion. If not, apologies for repeating.

Senator Kennedy has announced his No vote in a diary on Daily Kos.

[bmaz]

Yeah, because that would be a real shocker....

[skdadl]

EW, I'm off to sleep just now but I will check our records tomorrow (modest discussion board where we follow these things). If anything had occurred at that point to cause that reaction, I think it would have been more the preceding exchange between Leahy and Mukasey, not specifically Schumer's exchanges with him. But it was odd -- that was sort of what woke me up to the fact that Mukasey was running into trouble.

[prostratedragon]

So Mukasey, the former SDNY man, was Schumer's offering, eh? I'd either forgot or not really incorporated that fact. I hope that doesn't mean that I'm as stupid as David Addington.

NY">http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2007/nov/nov1a_07.html">NY Attorney General Sues First American and Its Subsidiary for Conspiring with Washington Mutual to Inflate Real Estate Appraisals

The applicable law is NY State's version of FIRREA. Evidence includes a lot of e-mail traffic(!) among the appraisers. I'd say WAMU (love that nickname!) has been placed on notice. Btw, this story is apparently the headline at Seattle Post-Intelligencer, according to comment over at Calculated Risk's blog. I suspect any interested lawyers, etc., would be real welcome over there at this story heats up.

And EW, thanks for that point about the torture questions becoming practically a shiny object in the Mukasey hearings. What debased times we live in! Blumenthal's article over at Salon did help me to see how that emphasis does point back to the more important governance issues.

[emptywheel]

prostrate

Oh yeah, Cuomo's gonna have fun--I read through the filing but got into the Mukasey before I did a post.

And if he has follow-on business, like he did on the student loan scandal, things could get interesting...

[emptywheel]

prostrate

Oh yeah, Cuomo's gonna have fun--I read through the filing but got into the Mukasey before I did a post.

And if he has follow-on business, like he did on the student loan scandal, things could get interesting...

[P J Evans]

Dear Ghu, please help DiFi get the message this time ....
In the e-mail I sent her, I laid out reasons to vote against Mukasey, using several of the points that have been laid out here.
I hope that something sinks in along the lines of 'this is not a good time to be 'bipartisan'. But I'm not going to take bmz's bet.

[orionATL]

i don't trust sen schumer any more than i trust sen lieberman.

they are both amoral slicks

who, regrettably for the national interest, really, really believe they know have access to political "truth".

unfortunately,

schumer and lieberman are both really, really wrong.

it's time to get rid of a lot of congresspeople,

schumer included,

who lack the capacity to act in the public interest.

[Mad Dogs]

I ain't taking bmaz's bet either. However...there's a whole lot of time between now and next Thursday's vote for more Mukassy screwups. Here's to hoping!

[Rayne]

"details of a classified program he has not been briefed on."

This has been bugging me all damned day. Why would anybody have to get "read into" a program that included waterboarding before they could conclusively say "hell f*cking no, it's torture."

But getting "read into" this program might just as well be any other program -- including domestic spying. If he can't take a conclusive stand on something as obviously wrong as waterboarding without being "read into" it, he can't and won't take a stand on anything else that's pretty damned wrong like spying on Americans.

What I want to know is what they have on Mukasey that he did the head-spinning turn-around from a Schumer-pick to three-day-old fish.

[radiofreewill]

Mukasey went from blocking with his hands to the chest on Monday, to delivering rake-handle forearms to the jaw on Tuesday. He knows what he did. He'll understand if Shumer cracks-back on him next week.

But, DiFi, she'll sell US out the very second one of the Gooper Strict Daddies raises his voice to her.

[Katie Jensen]

I was sailing along on these post, having that once exciting stir of hope, but then I read "the bet". THUNK. I hit the wall.

Thank bmaz, I hope I don't dream of di fi and schumer. I know your point is valid about past patterns of behavior. In all fairness E.W did some nice foreshadowing with her pessimism. goodnight all.

[sojourner]

Rayne, I have had the same comment digging at me all day, too. It was like Bush was offering that up as some kind of valid reason for supporting Mukasey, which says a lot about Bush's own values and where they lie. Never mind that waterboarding is a form of torture, or that anything else you are choosing to do is destroying our country. You have to be 'read in' to something to truly understand it...

Yeah, right...

[bmaz]

This just about sums up where we stand today. Torture is just a joke to the Bush Republicans. Republican "strategist" Rachel">http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/057687.php">Rachel Marsden on CNN: "One man's torture is another man's CIA-sponsored swim lesson." What the fuck is wrong with these people? Seriously.

[JohnLopresti]

There is a CLC article on Schumer's associate's proposed promotion to FEC there;">http://www.clcblog.org/blog_item-169.html">there; article is about 5 weeks since publication. There seems a dysymmetry to the tradeoff between AG and FEC; maybe Schumer could ask for more, something like no perielection">http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5230">perielection prosecutions in NY, but that would be difficult to reduce to writing as a political covenant.

[Neil]

My money is on DiFi and Schumer selling out the Constitution and country. Straight up bet. Any takers?
Posted by: bmaz | November 01, 2007 at 19:50

No bmaz. I won't take that bet without odds but I will write them both tomorrow and tell them why they should vote no on Mukasey.

[big brother]

Until Impeachment you all have your oars out of the water.

[KLynn]

Some soccer moms formally worked at the UN in Geneva... Let's hope torture and his position on the AG's come to light for all, not just soccer moms...

[looseheadprop]

Leahy called it when he asked Mukasey if somebody "got" to him between the first day of testimony and the second day of testimony. Mukasey denied going over to the WH and said he had dinner with his family on the night in between.

So maybe it was an early morning breakfast meeting when Mukasey got woodshedded?

The guy who testified on the first day, was the guy Schumer thought he was nominating and the guy Schumer sold to his colleagues.

However, in their usual presto chango fashion, the WH truned him to the dark side in only 24 hours. They must have some great brainwashing operation going in the basement of the WH.

I did predict that Mukasey would get punked. What I did not realize is that he might get punked even BEFORE becoming AG.

I wonder how they flipped him so fast?