Torture, Continued

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "Congress could aggressively investigate. Criminal prosecutions could be commenced. Our opinion-making elite could sound the alarm. New laws could be passed, reversing the prior endorsements and imposing new restrictions, along with the will to enforce those laws. We still have the ability to vindicate the rule of law and enforce our basic constitutional framework.

"But does anyone actually believe any of that will be the result of these new revelations? We always possess the choice -- still -- to take a stand for the rule of law and our basic national values, but with every new day that we choose not to, those Bush policies become increasingly normalized, increasingly the symbol not only of 'Bushism' but of America."

Mukasey Watch

There will undoubtedly be some discussion of torture at Michael Mukasey's confirmation hearings to replace Gonzales as attorney general.

Philip Shenon writes in the New York Times: "Backing away from a fight with the White House, Senate Democrats are suggesting that they will not hold up confirmation of President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, despite differences over Senate access to documents involving Justice Department actions.

"In a letter to Mr. Mukasey made public Wednesday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said he would go forward with the confirmation hearings without the promise of the documents.

"The committee had for months been pressing the White House for access to files and e-mail messages about last year's firing of several federal prosecutors for what Democrats maintain were political reasons, and about legal justifications for the domestic eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency. . . .

"The decision to go forward with the hearings appeared to reflect a calculation by Mr. Leahy and other Democrats that they did not want to be seen as willing to leave the post unfilled after complaining so loudly of turmoil in the department under Mr. Gonzales."

Bush's Sinking SCHIP

Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman write in The Washington Post: "President Bush yesterday vetoed a $35 billion expansion of a popular children's health insurance program, a move that left him as politically isolated as he has ever been and had even Republican allies questioning his hard-line strategy.

"Bush advisers said they remain hopeful that they can secure an extension of the 10-year-old program with a lower price tag, saying they want to open negotiations soon.

"But House Democratic leaders signaled they are not yet ready to bargain. They have delayed until Oct. 18 a vote to override the veto, in hopes that a grass-roots campaign by health-policy advocates and a barrage of television and radio advertisements will win over the 15 or so Republicans they will need to overcome Bush's opposition."

Abramowitz and Weisman write that the confrontation stems in part "from the White House's desire to use the bill reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program to advance Bush's proposals to expand health insurance coverage through tax breaks as it does from his budgetary concerns. . . .

"But the key Republicans on health-care issues, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking GOP member of the Finance Committee, said they found no takers for this approach. [Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah)] Hatch, a conservative, said he thought Bush was being unrealistic and had not come to grips with the fact that Democrats now run Congress."