After listening to the radio news, I'm toying with the idea of asking my lawyering husband to give up fighting for people, because I understand now: In the new post-Sept. 11 world we've created, we don't need laws. 

Just ask Michael B. Mukasey who was just given a nod of approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee to be the next attorney general. Seems Mukasey doesn't necessarily believe water-boarding is torture. If it was torture, then according to the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and the War Crimes Act, water-boarding would be considered illegal. 

Republicans like Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the White House think Mukasey's view on torture and water-boarding is great, American-minded independent thinking. All right then. What Hatch and the Bush White House really mean is that this is after all an age when laws really don't matter anymore. They want people who are independent of the Constitution. 

So, those big bad Republicans causing so much trouble, I could just spit across the street ... but wait... what about Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted for Mukasey?

Now I'll have some momentum to really spit across the street. There are nine Republicans and 10 Democrats. Those Demo votes were needed to make it happen. In The New York Times, Schumer said he admired Mukasey's independence. Feinstein said he was better than Alberto. 

So, not much is illegal these days. The Democratic Party, the party my family has held so close to for so long, doesn't seem any different to me than the GOP.

My lawyering husband disagrees. 

Now dear, remember this during my defense: That pot farm I'm thinking about putting in the back yard is just me following in the footsteps of our great leader and doing some independent thinkin'.