Conservative pundit: Many people want anti-torture senator waterboarded 
MSNBC's Dan Abrams reported on Monday that Michael Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general may be in trouble, due to his reluctance to say whether he believes waterboarding is torture. Even some Republicans have doubts, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who suggested on Sunday that he might vote against Mukasey if he does not clarify his views.
"Why won't he just say that [it's torture] and move on?" Abrams asked conservative talk radio host Michael Reagan
"Lindsey Graham went through this two years ago when he was doing every television show on the planet about torture," Reagan replied. "They passed a piece of legislation ... but Lindsey Graham, who's tied to John McCain, keeps on bringing up the very same issue -- the only two that are really after it. There are a lot of people who believe, in fact, Lindsey Graham should be the one waterboarded."
"This was going to be their easy one," Abrams then marveled to Joan Walsh of Salon.com. "They weren't going to have to worry about Mukasey."
"I'll tell you why he didn't say it," Walsh answered. "He says in his testimony, you know, I don't want to talk about this because right now there may be somebody using this interrogation technique. ... It's crucial that he answer this question, but there's a reason. People are probably being tortured."
Conservative analyst Pat Buchanan, however, defended the practice, saying "There are reports that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was waterboarded ... and that saved an enormous amount of lives." Buchanan added that "the cowardice here is on the part of the Congress," and that if Congress believes waterboarding is torture, it should pass a law against it.
"Why is it their burden to outlaw every form of torture?" asked Abrams, to which Buchanan replied, "Because they are gutless."
"They love to have the issue but never like to solve it," Reagan explained. Reagan, who is the son of President Ronald Reagan, suggested that anti-war members of Congress have been unwilling to pass legislation withdrawing troops from Iraq because of fears of being blamed if things go badly and that they are reluctant to outlaw torture for the same reason.
"It sounds to me like that is just the ultimate in passing the buck," Abrams whispered to Walsh.
"If the attorney general can't say what's torture and what's not torture, what do we have him for?" Walsh replied.
The following video is from MSNBC's Abrams Report, broadcast on October 29, 2007
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