Amongst all the furror over the passage of FISA yesterday few took note of a hearing the Judiciary Committee held with Attorney General Mukasey. It was a hard-hitting serious of questions about a wide variety of issues. From politicization, to torture memos, to hiring and firing practices, and selective prosecution many good Senators asked many good questions. For the most part however Mukasey was evasive. No one could pin him down. That was however, until Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) got his turn.
For the past few years Biden has been furious with the Department of Justice. Not just for Gitmo and torture, wiretapping and politicization, but for an issue few have given much thought to. The COPS program. This program written by the Senator in the 1990's has had a dramatic effect on violent crimes in America by putting 100,000 new police officers on the street. Well, just recently funding for the program has decreased $500 million. And why? Is it because people feel that it's OK to have 18,000 murders a year. That's low enough. We no longer need this piece of legislation. Well, we do, we need this law, we need these cops, and to have them it has to be funded.
So going into this hearing Joe was hot to start. He was angry. He needed some answers, and he needed answers for everything, not just the COP bill.
Here is the "enigma" comment.
Here he schools Mukasey on the COP's program! "Wrong! I wrote the COP's program with my little paw!" Skip to about 7 min.