So what does the Administration have on Michael Mukasey?

For that matter, what does the Administration have on members of Congress? Have we been completely off-base in this domestic spying business? Is the Administration not so much interested in spying on citizens as in spying on those in a position to actually put the brakes on their crimes? What else could explain the capitulation again and again, on EVERYONE's part, to further the Bushcheney march towards a police state?

Yesterday Bill in Portland Maine over at Le Grand Orange speculated on what it could be:

What Do They Have On You, Dems?

I figure it must be some sick perverted sex thing. Involving sheep or chickens. Maybe horses.

Sure, it could be some money scandal or shady land sale or quid pro quo campaign-contributions-for-favors deal. But I doubt it.

I suspect the gutless and the gullible Democrats in Congress gather at one of their apartments every night, strip down, grease up, and have orgies with hookers, barn animals, toys of every shape and size, and each other. And if they don’t keep doing what Republicans tell them to do inside Congress, their "little secret" will be leaked to the press and that'll be that: rehab for everyone.

As you may have heard (it was on the teevee), Congress is at eleven percent approval. Eleven percent---hockey sticks. That's less than half the approval of the worst president in U.S. history, who stands at a mind-blowing 24 percent (as bad as Nixon's numbers got during the darkest days of Watergate). But eleven percent? That's even worse than the last congress, in which the GOP literally banged their gavel and then called Bingo for a whopping 23 days out of the year. How hard could it be to top that??

There must be something pretty twisted going on behind closed doors, because raising their approval rating is as easy as getting off their trapezes, removing their fur-lined handcuffs and spiked collars, sending Bessie the "wonder mule" back to the stable and doing something as simple as saying the magic word: "No."

In today's New York Times Jed Rubenfeld comments on the change in Michael Mukasey's tone in regard to executive branch power from the one he held as a judge:

AT his confirmation hearings last week, Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, was asked whether the president is required to obey federal statutes. Judge Mukasey replied, “That would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the authority of the president to defend the country.”

I practiced before Judge Mukasey when I was an assistant United States attorney, and I saw his fairness, conscientiousness and legal acumen. But before voting to confirm him as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, the Senate should demand that he retract this statement. It is a dangerous confusion and distortion of the single most fundamental principle of the Constitution — that everyone, including the president, is subject to the rule of law.

It is true that a president may in rare cases disregard a federal statute — but only when Congress has acted outside its authority by passing a statute that is unconstitutional. (Who gets the last word on whether a statute is unconstitutional is something Americans have long debated and probably will always debate.)

But that is not what Judge Mukasey said. What he said, and what many members of the current administration have claimed, would radically transform this accepted point of law into a completely different and un-American concept of executive power.

According to Judge Mukasey’s statement, as well as other parts of his testimony, the president’s authority “to defend the nation” trumps his obligation to obey the law. Take the federal statute governing military commissions in Guantánamo Bay. No one, including the president’s lawyers, argues that this statute is unconstitutional. The only question is whether the president is required to obey it even if in his judgment the statute is not the best way “to defend the nation.”

If he is not, we no longer live under the government the founders established.

Democrats noted how his tone changed between the first and second days of his appearance, which makes me wonder what information he didn't want to get out that the Administration showed him they had between those two days.

Is this how they've gotten away with it over the past six years? Compiling dossiers on everyone, including guys like Arlen Specter and John Warner, who look like they're going to do the right thing and then cave at the last minute? And if that's the case, then Washington is an even bigger cesspool than we imagined.