Editorial: By any other name …

Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 | 7:39 a.m.

Two weeks ago it appeared President Bush's nominee for attorney general, retired federal Chief Judge Michael Mukasey, would easily gain Senate confirmation.

Mukasey helped his chances when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee he would resign before engaging in partisan politics.

It was just what the committee - and the nation - wanted to hear following the congressionally forced resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who didn't mind contorting federal law to further White House political objectives.

Now, however, Mukasey's luster has worn off among committee Democrats, a change that means confirmation is no longer certain. The reason is that Mukasey, despite the Democrats' persistence, will not characterize waterboarding as wrong and in violation of U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

Waterboarding has been used by the CIA during interrogation of terrorism suspects. The Bush administration will not say whether the practice is still used but defends "enhanced" interrogation as legal.

Democrats rightly condemn torture and believe waterboarding meets the definition. There are various forms of waterboarding, but its name derives from strapping a prisoner to a horizontal or inclined board, wrapping a towel over his face and pouring water on the towel until he begins to drown.

In June 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that terrorism suspects are covered by the Geneva Conventions, reversing a legal opinion by the Bush administration. This means they are not to be tortured. But are "enhanced" interrogation techniques considered torture?

Mukasey's refusal to condemn waterboarding as torture means that if he is confirmed, the White House could have a friend in the attorney general as it continues to authorize "enhanced" interrogation techniques that most people would call torture.

We believe waterboarding is torture and share the Democrats' concern over Mukasey's refusal to state plainly how he defines it.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was tortured while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, has long stated flatly that waterboarding is torture. That a candidate for attorney general will not do the same is an outrage.