The issue of torture once again takes center stage from the Senate confirmation hearing of Michael Mukasey as attorney general to liberal columnists.

Mukasey is in the spotlight because of his refusal to say whether he considers waterboarding illegal.

The New York Times reports: 

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.

The issue seems rather clear to us. Either waterboarding is torture and illegal under U.S. law or it is not. Mukasey seems more interested in protecting the Bush administration than following the rule of law.

Bob Cesca, writing at the Huffington Post, puts it this way: 

For too many years now, we've watched the president in plain sight, and despite his reputation in certain media circles for "knowing where he stands," dance around both the English language and the rule of law in order to justify torture.

We've watched his administration erode any remaining dignity and honor our nation possessed.

We've watched this regime affirm many of our conspiratorial suspicions about the demons lurking in America's citadels.

We've watched them transform a decade of peace followed by a brief era of world unity into a dark age of fear, distrust, paranoia, hatred and corruption.

 Did we not see Congress impeach a sitting president for dancing around the definition of what sex is? How is this any different?

Consider this from a news analysis from BuzzFlash: 

Bush has continued to insist that his administration does not conduct torture by merely redefining what torture is, as distinct from how it is outlawed under International law and agreements. You can see how he accomplishes this "redefining" by his claim to the New York Times, while he was at Yale, that branding fraternity pledges was not cruel because "it didn’t hurt any more than a cigarette burn."

The Democrats have long treated the torture issue as though it were a public policy issue and not an outgrowth of a psychological deviancy on the part of Bush (along with the Cheney/Addington "we are accountable to no one" worldview).

As BuzzFlash has long argued, Bush is a model narcissistic sociopath, who is devoid of the ability to empathize. It is the characteristic of such people to have the ability to "appear" to be concerned about others, but that is just for show. The inner heart is empty. You can knock all you want, but you won’t find anyone home in the empathy department when it comes to sociopathic personalities.

Who among the so-called leaders in Congress has the stones to put a stop to this monstrosity.

No one, we fear.