One of the things I try really, really hard to do as an editorial cartoonist is be different, deviate from the herd as best I can. I have noticed a lot of cartoonists (whom I respect greatly) piling on to Judge Mukasey because he is being, er, “overly-careful” about how he words his opposition to torture. Fair enough, but I think that it’s a little too easy to hit the Judge, (who is a capable and eminently qualified candidate) when the bigger issue in this case is the snivelling legacy of Alberto Gonzales: The mere fact we’re even stooping to discuss what legally constitutes torture amid the tattered remnants of the formally respected US Justice Department. That any respected, qualified nominee has to stammer through some type of legal verbal acrobatics in an attempt to not place themselves in an untenable semantic position with their potential bosses in the Bush administration (who think torture is 100% okay) is the real scandal here.