Paul Kiel October 25, 2007, 5:49 PM

Before the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wasn’t shy about saying what he thought of Michael Mukasey: “I like him.” And the attorney general nominee breezed through the first day of questioning. But day two got rough. And now the chairman seems to be wavering in his support of Mukasey. From the AP:

Judge Michael Mukasey’s nomination for attorney general ran into trouble Thursday when two top Senate Democrats said their votes hinge on whether he will say on the record that an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is torture. “It’s fair to say my vote would depend on him answering that question,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters late Thursday.

“This to me is the seminal issue,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, another member of Leahy’s panel. Asked if his vote depends on whether Mukasey equates waterboarding with torture, Durbin answered, “It does.”

Leahy has refused to set a date for a vote on Mukasey’s nomination until he clarifies his answer to that question.

Separately, a Democrat familiar with the panel’s deliberations said Mukasey may not get the 10 committee votes his nomination needs to be reported to the Senate floor with a favorable recommendation unless he says, in effect, that waterboarding is torture.

The issue, of course, is Mukasey’s “massive hedge” of an answer to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) question about whether waterboarding is torture (watch the exchange here). Earlier this week, the Democrats on the committee penned a letter to Mukasey, giving him a primer on the old torture technique and asking again for an answer. His confirmation might depend on it.

Michael Mukasey, Torture