Over the weekend, I’ve mostly come around to the belief that it’s better to confirm Mukasey than not to, and no, it has nothing to do with being afraid that Bush will call democrats names.
While Mukasey’s answers on waterboarding are indeed concerning, there is a logic – and some hope – behind them.
First off, Mukasey, at the bare minimum, believes that Congress has a role to be in the discussion, which is better than what Gonzales believed. He also appeared to indicate that it was Congress’ domain to make torture illegal and to define what constitutes torture, but not necessarily the nitty-gritty aspects of detainments of enemy combatants, and I don’t think that is necessarily unreasonable.
There has been a lot of hay over Mukasey refusing to flat out say waterboarding is illegal because then he may be obligated to prosecute people – even very high ranking people – for it. While liberals may not only find no problem with this, but actually wish this were the case, to expect a nominee to put himself in such a position is probably asking too much of them, and added to the above statements of Congressional authority, Mukasey’s position on the matter, while still troubling, isn’t a show stopper for me.
On the other major issue that the new AG must face – politicization in the Justice Department – Mukasey appeared to be pretty clear on his belief that politics should be left at the door in the DOJ, and that is definitely a welcome change if he is sincere about it.
This brings me to the meaning behind the title of this post: Balance vs. Checkboxes.
I’ve pounded on this point before, but this is a new way to address it. Many people on both political extremes – both left and right – often decide (or say they will decide) whether to support someone or not based on whether they check off the correct, required check marks. If you check them off, you’re in, if not, you’re out, and other issues don’t really matter. And it’s not a matter of checking off the most boxes – you have to check them all.
This seems to be the similar case. There were several checkboxes Mukasey had to check off: politicization in the DOJ bad – check. Torture is illegal – check. Waterboarding is torture – oops. But that “oops” isn’t him saying it isn’t torture, he’s basically saying that he can’t say whether it is or not.
Now, since Mukasey didn’t check off that box in absolutist terms, he is automatically eliminated, regardless of any other circumstances, according to the liberal base of the party. However, as a moderate, I tend to look at the situation in an overall balance.
This includes the fact that there was never any expectation that Mukasey would be perfect, given that Bush in nominating him, the fact that he’ll only be AG for about 15 or so, and if we don’t confirm him, the acting AG who will be in his place is even worse, and has zero chance of improving the department in any way.
I think opposing Mukasey, while it appeals to the “we must hold to our principles, no matter what” crowd, just leads into a “it’s better to lose than to win” mentality which is often, in the end, counterproductive.
For a good example, let’s say there is a bill in congress that would result in cutting down the entire forest. Someone comes up with a compromise that would only cut down half the forest. People who oppose cutting down any of the forest are needed to pass the compromise and to prevent the passage of the original bill. However, this group, who decide to stand by their “principles,” decide that they aren’t going to vote for the compromise, because it would be wrong to vote for cutting down half the forest. As a result, the bill which will cut down the entire forest is passed.
What has occurred here is, that in their attempt to feel personally gratified by standing by their “principles,” they actually made the situation worse than it had to be. They had a choice between A and B, and only A and B, but acted as if choice C was a legitimate choice, when it really wasn’t, and as a result, the worst out of the two original choices came to pass instead of the best out of the two, even if it wasn’t a great choice.
A real life example of this would be liberals who didn’t view Gore as good enough in 2000 and voted Green, thus swinging Florida and New Hampshire to Bush – either of which going the other way would have given Gore the presidency. They didn’t want the “not good enough” Gore, voted for a, in their eyes better, yet non-viable, choice C, and ended up getting the worse out of the two original choices elected. Their decision to “stand by their principles” caused more damage than cutting their losses.
In a sense, they are just like Bush in how he treats Iraq – there are very few to no “good choices” but a lot of really bad choices, yet his principles on the matter cause him to keep believing in a non-existence “Choice C,” and as a result, things in Iraq just keep heading towards one of those “really bad” endings.
This is why I have never liked, and will never like, a “it’s better to lose than to win” mindset. I might be called unprincipled, but I actually think it’s more principled to cut your losses, than to pretend that you’re doing a good thing which in turn allows something even worse to occur.
