Dianne Feinstein's Vote For Michael Mukasey

I have pondered what exactly did Dianne Feinstein hope to gain by confirming Michael Mukasey. She is in a blue state and a safe seat. The only effect I see is Feinstein pissing off the base.

Feinstein explained her vote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.

The Justice Department is in desperate need of effective leadership. It is leaderless, and 10 of its top positions are vacant. Morale among U.S. attorneys needs to be restored, priorities reassessed and a new dynamic of independence from the White House established.

Feinstein is incredibly naive if she thinks Mukasey is going to prosecute members of the Bush administration. Mukasey refuses to say that waterboarding is torture to protect the administration. The White House will never nominate an Attorney General that that would tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others have committed war crimes. Mukasey is "effective" leadership only for administration officials wishing to stay out of prison.

Scott Horton reported Mukasey all but guaranteed to the Federalist Society no special prosecutor would be appointed for the torture or U.S. Attorneys scandals. Effective leadership, indeed.

Democrasy For America has launched a campaign to have Feinstein removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on a rework of the FISA Act -- the law that's supposed to protect us all against illegal wiretapping.

When the Bush administration didn't want to follow this law, they asked major telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon to help. Several phone companies broke the law to help Dick Cheney read our emails and listen to our phone calls.

They knew it was illegal. But they didn't expect to get caught.

Now that they did, the Bush administration is trying to protect AT&T and others from lawsuits by granting retroactive immunity for breaking the law. The Senate Judiciary Committee can kill this bill if all ten Democrats vote against it.

Senator Feinstein is the only Democrat who says she'll vote for it.

Please call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid right now and demand he remove Senator Feinstein from the committee and replace her with a Democrat who will stand up to President Bush's abuse of power.

Feinstein ignored civil and human rights, alienated the base and gave Republicans a victory. This is a horrible political and policy decision. The question is why did she vote for Mukasey? The answer is Feinstein really is naive. She hasn't learned anything about how the Bushies.