1115.org

Alberto Gonzales‘ signature phrase was “I don’t recall”, usually with “Senator” stuck on at either end.

Michael Mukasey seems to be in the process of staking out “I cannot say” for his very own. He burst into the limelight by not being able to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture. Not at his confirmation hearings, not long after.

Yesterday, in an exhibition of behavior that was bizarre even by the standards of the Bush administration, he first played the “I cannot say” card several times in response to questions about the execrable John Yoo’s Fourth Amendment memo, and whether it is still in force or has been withdrawn:

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned Attorney General Michael Mukasey about that October, 2001 Justice Department memo in which John Yoo found that the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” had “no application to domestic military operations.”

Has that memo been withdrawn? If not, was it still in force? Feinstein wanted to know.

She found it difficult to pry an answer loose. “I can’t speak to the October, 2001 memo,” Mukasey said when she asked whether it had been withdrawn. He said that Yoo’s later March, 2003 memo — which broadly authorized the use of torture by military interrogators on unlawful combatants — had been withdrawn, but refused to discuss that October, 2001 memo.

Mukasey then (briefly) put on as arrogant a display of stonewalling as anyone in the Bush administration has ever done:

(Feinstein said:) “I’m just asking you, ‘Is this memo in force that the Fourth Amendment does not apply?”

“The principle that the Fourth Amendment does not apply in wartime is not in force,” Mukasey replied.

“That’s not the principle I asked you about,” Feinstein countered. The memo referred to domestic military operations, she said.

“There are no domestic military operations being carried out today,” Mukasey replied.

“I’m asking you a question. That’s not the answer.”

“I’m unaware of any domestic military operations being carried out today,” he repeated.

“You’re not answering my question,” she said.

And then, he abruptly folded:

Finally, Mukasey responded, “The Fourth Amendment applies across the board whether we’re in wartime or peacetime. It applies across the board.”

When Feinstein pronounced herself satisfied, Mukasey said, “with due respect, I don’t think there’s anything really new about that answer.” He went on to imply that Yoo’s discussion of the applicability of the Fourth Amendment had not been a crucial aspect of that memo. “The discussion of which that was a part… means the inaptness… the suggested inapplicability of the Fourth Amendment as an alternative basis for finding that searches discussed there would be reasonable.”

No one in the known universe knows what that last sentence means, of course.

But what of Mukasey’s behavior? What sense does it make for him to play games the way he did, if he was prepared all along to actually answer Feinstein’s question directly? Just his way of saying: “F**k you!”? Not to Feinstein personally, but to Democrats in general? As well as all the ass**les who care about things like civil liberties and torture?