Congenial Evasion

Salon's Joan Walsh wonders
whether attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey will be voted out of committee for a senate vote on his confirmation. Questions abound, to be sure, given the evasive answers he's provided thus far. On the one hand, Deputy Press Sec.y Tony Fratto has said that the nominee hasn't been "read into classified intelligence programs." On the other, as Walsh notes, citing Paul Kiel at TPM, Mukasey testified that he wouldn't "say something that is going to put . . . careers or freedom at risk simply because I want to be congenial." It's more of the same from an administration that demands "congeniality" from Congress on matters of confirmation, approval for expanded wiretapping and immunity for telecoms, while simultaneously exhibiting less than congenial behavior when Congress comes calling for documentation regarding these matters.