Dear Senator Feinstein ...

I sent the following mail to Senator Feinstein today. She was effectively the swing vote permitting the nomination of Mr Mukasey to go forward. I know such letters will have no impact on a Senator that doesn't have to think about her electorate for five more years, but it helped calm me down a little.

- J

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I know you will say that your vote on the Mukasey nomination does not mean you endorse the use of torture. I think you believe your vote was practical and pragmatic; making the best of a bad situation. If not Mukasey, Bush could send up somebody worse.

I think you are wrong. The citizens of California, the citizens of this country, and the citizens of the world are waiting for our government to stand up and begin to restore some of the ideals that we once stood for. Our president says we do not torture but has not disavowed memos that define torture so narrowly as to be meaningless. A number of your fellow Judiciary Committee members stood together to make a clear statement about torture, to draw a line. You would not stand with them. You stood with the president. You stood for torture.

- J