Mukasey distances self from Gonzales

WASHINGTON (MCT) — Atty. Gen. nominee Michael Mukasey sought Wednesday to reassure critics of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies, explicitly telling a Senate panel he disapproved of the position on abusive interrogation practices backed by his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

After months of strife between Congress and the Justice Department, the confirmation hearing over the prospective attorney general was less a rancorous debate over the administration's policies than it was a polite back-and-forth over the future of the department.

The reason was the low-key and unassuming demeanor of the choice for job, Mukasey, a retired federal judge. To the extent that any members of the Senate Judiciary Committee arrived Wednesday loaded with buckshot to fire at the nominee, they were quickly disarmed by the overall mood of civility that took hold once Mukasey began his testimony.

Many senators spoke glowingly about Mukasey in terms of the man he likely will replace, former Atty. Gen. Gonzales, even though Mukasey took few hard-and-fast stands on polarizing issues of the day, such as the future of the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects in Cuba and the power of the government to obtain wiretaps without warrants.

But Mukasey attempted to make clear straight away that he, as one senator labeled him, was "a man of the law, not a man of politics."

He pledged his independence from the White House, going as far as to say he would resign if faced with the prospect of the president ignoring his decision over the illegality of a potential anti-terrorism program. "I will either talk him out of it or push away from the table and leave," Mukasey said.

He promised that hiring decisions within the department would be made without regard to party affiliation.

And he quickly distanced himself from Gonzales by explicitly disavowing a pair of Justice Department memos that authorized use of abusive tactics to interrogate suspected terrorists. Mukasey said that policy "was worse than a sin. It was a mistake."

Mukasey noted that the United States was bound by its own laws and treaty obligations to prohibit torture, but he went further, saying, "We don't torture, not simply because it's against this or that law or this or that treaty. Soldiers of this country liberated concentration camps and photographed what they saw there as a record of the barbarism they opposed."