The Days of our Discontent....

A snapshot of the week ahead.... former congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL) will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom this morning. Perhaps in recognition of his relentless crusade against women's right to choose, or, as the House of Representatives chief prosecutor in President Clinton's impeachment proceedings over his adulterous affair with a White House intern.

Of course....hypocrisy, thy name is GOP..... during the Clinton witch hunt Hyde admitted to Salon magazine in 1998 that he had carried on a five-year sexual relationship with a much younger married woman that ended when Hyde's wife found out about it.

And.... tomorrow morning the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the confirmation of Michael Mukasey, The Decider's nominee for attorney general. With spineless Democrats like Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Charles Schumer (NY) giving the nod to Mukasey, it seems assured he'll gain the approval of the committee and the full Senate later this month. So, we'll have another attorney general who can't say if waterboarding torture is illegal.... it's still what the meaning of is, is.

Mukasey should have asked Evan Wallach, he explains it all in his piece today "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime." (WaPo)

He reminds us that after "World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war." Of course, under the Bush administration, the days of national moral behavior are just a memory .... perverted by a flurry of The Decider's directives and his last political-enabler, attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

Looks like this isn't the week that will restore our tattered national honor.