LAT has a cow

This morning the LAT loses its cool over AG Mukasey's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on waterboarding. By overstating its case, the LAT loses whatever credibility it started with. The LAT assertions about when in the past waterboarding has been used and who has been prosecuted for it need to be proven before they are to be believed. The LAT has in the past published untrue "facts" in its editorials (see 60 million Americans live on $7 a day).

As regards waterboarding, whether it's torture or not isn't clear. Waterboarding doesn't endanger a life and it does no physical damage to the human body. On the other hand, plucking out eyes, pulling off fingernails and burning testicles does. With waterboarding, the tortured merely get wet. Whether waterboarding does psychological damage isn't yet known, or proven. We have only the testimony of irrational Bush haters, such as the LAT, on that question.

Anyhow, Mukasey wasn't testifying on those questions. He was merely saying he thought it was inappropriate to issue a legal opinion based on hypothetical facts. A careful lawyer should take that approach.