Just like Gonzalez, but without the shame

AG Mukasey, who isn't sure torture is illegal, does know that fixing our drug laws will unleash waves of pure evil across the "homeland."

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey warned Congress on Thursday that unless it enacted legislation quickly, hundreds of people in jail for cocaine offenses, “many of them violent gang members, will be eligible for immediate release into the community nationwide.”

But as Mr. Mukasey delivered the message to the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing, he found himself upbraided and criticized by members who said he was vastly overstating the situation.

Democrats noted that no one would be released from jail without a hearing before a federal judge who would be obliged to evaluate each case in consultation with the authorities.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said Mr. Mukasey was squandering his credibility by raising the fear that many violent offenders would soon be released.

Ms. Waters said his statement was misleading and added that the last attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, was forced to resign over a lack of credibility.

Mr. Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York who succeeded Mr. Gonzales, did not dispute that there was a process in place that relied on federal judges to decide who could be released.

At issue is a ruling by the United States Sentencing Commission that, beginning March 3, defendants convicted of crack cocaine offenses be sentenced under new guidelines with lesser penalties. The commission also said that the new guidelines would be applied retroactively. Those actions were part of the continuing debate over how to narrow differences in sentences for crack and powder cocaine.

The commission issued its plan immediately after the Supreme Court ruled in December that federal judges may hand down lighter sentences for crack cocaine defendants than those recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the committee’s ranking Republican, has introduced legislation that would eliminate the commission’s plan to make the new guidelines for crack cocaine sentences retroactive. Both Democrats and Republicans said there was no expectation that the legislation would be enacted.