Bush Backs Attorney General Nominee

Bush told reporters this morning that Mukasey "is not being treated fairly" and that it was "time to get his nomination to the floor so the Senate can vote him up or down."

When asked about his own view of the legality of waterboarding, Bush replied: "I'm not going to talk about techniques. There is an enemy out there. I don't want them to understand -- to be able to adjust one way or the other. My view is this: The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law, and members of the House and Senate know what I'm talking about. They have been fully briefed."

He identified the lawmakers only as "select members of the Senate and House, both parties."

Mukasey's nomination has become a particularly thorny problem for his original Senate patron, Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). He had suggested Mukasey as a consensus nominee to the White House and declared two weeks ago that he should be confirmed, but he was noncommittal yesterday.

The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), acknowledged that Mukasey's "confirmation is at risk." But he said the nominee went "about as far as he can go" in repudiating waterboarding without endangering classified programs or U.S. personnel involved in the interrogations.

If Specter and other eight GOP committee members support him, Mukasey will need support from just one Democrat to win approval from the committee, which is divided 10 to 9 along party lines.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also weighed in on the confirmation battle today, saying the United States does not use waterboarding these days and arguing that Mukasey would not allow the technique.

The Republican presidential candidate told students at Coastal Carolina University during a campaign trip through South Carolina that he was confident Mukasey "would not condone" waterboarding. "I have been briefed enough to know we are not doing that today anywhere in America's government," he added, according to the Associated Press.

McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war after he was shot down over Hanoi, said the United States should not engage in torture and that there was no need for waterboarding. He has described being repeatedly tortured himself during his confinement in the notorious prison known as the Hanoi Hilton.