Could you gag?

If we needed any further evidence about how the runaway endorsement of thuggery at the top is going to come back and bite us all in the ass, consider the prosecution and conviction Wednesday of a Mexican gangbanger involved in a Bronx street shootout that killed a 10-year-old kid. That’s obviously a criminal act and deserves severe punishment, but I think the laws previously on the books probably covered the murder of little girls. We don’t need a police state to address phenomena of this sort, and the anti-terrorism crusade hasn’t slowed them down either. But we’ve pumped up the police with new surveillance, spying, interrogation and prosecution powers, and anyone squeamish about the package and the implications for what Bush likes to call ‘freedom’ is trashed as a hopeless wimp who doesn’t understand war.

The spectacle of the new Attorney General nominee is yet another moment to witness the ongoing bipartisan endorsement of this trend despite the welcome last-minute resistance from certain Democrats. Turns out lawyer Mukasey can’t decide whether tying someone down and asphyxiating him constitutes torture, which kind of makes you want to strangle the guy—just a little.

My own senator and Friend of Hillary Charles Schumer is undergoing severe discomfort since he was instrumental in producing the job offer in the first place and wanted to shepherd the nomination through without too much talk about torture, which tells you something about that gentleman’s priorities.

After everything that’s happened in the last six years, Bush’s abysmal poll numbers and the clear threat to the rule of law implied in letting this guy slip through, you’d think the so-called ‘opposition’ would have enough steam to actually impose its will. But don’t hold your breath.