Thanks a lot, guys

Well, they went and did it:

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general to replace Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from office in a scandal over his handling of the Justice Department.

Mukasey was confirmed late Thursday as the United States' 81st attorney general after a sharp debate over his refusal to say whether the waterboarding interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, is torture.

President Bush thanked the Senate, even though the margin had been whittled down from nearly unanimous by a sharp debate over Mukasey's refusal to say whether the waterboarding interrogation technique is torture.

"He will be an outstanding attorney general," Bush said in a statement from his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"Good doggies... goooood doggies. Here, have a bone."

The choice, according to one of those Democrats, was essentially between "whether to confirm Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general or whether to leave the Department of Justice without a real leader for the next 14 months," said one Democratic supporter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Think of all the terrorism cases that would have gone unprosecuted! Well, other than pretty much all of them.

Mukasey has called waterboarding personally "repugnant," and in a letter to senators said he did not know enough about how it has been used to define it as torture. He also said he thought it would be irresponsible to discuss it since doing so could make interrogators and other government officials vulnerable to lawsuits.

Well, gosh! Since we don't do it, according to what Bush tells us, that shouldn't have been an issue since those lawsuits would have been dismissed outright for lack of evidence.

Right?

In an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, Mukasey criticized U.S. national security law as too weak in some areas by noting that prosecutors are sometimes forced to reveal details of cases at the risk of tipping off terrorists. He is also a supporter of the government's anti-terror USA Patriot Act, wryly writing in 2004 that the "awkward name may very well be the worst thing about the statute."

Ah, yes, contempt for the Bill of Rights is "wry". Heh! A regular Oscar Wilde, there.