WASHINGTON — President Bush on Thursday raised the stakes in his contest with Senate Democrats over the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general, saying they were subjecting the nominee to a unique and unfair standard and could cause the Justice Department to be left without leadership at a critical juncture.
Bush, in his most forceful remarks to date on the troubled nomination, strongly defended Mukasey's refusal to say whether Mukasey believed that an interrogation technique known as water-boarding was illegal torture.
The issue has become the defining question for Senate Democrats in advance of Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on whether to confirm the retired federal judge to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
"If the Senate Judiciary Committee were to block Judge Mukasey on these grounds, they would set a new standard for confirmation that could not be met by any responsible nominee for attorney general," Bush said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
"And that would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war."
Mukasey has declined to offer an opinion on the legality of interrogation methods, saying he has not been briefed on which programs the administration is using. He has also said he does not want to make an uninformed judgment that could tip off terrorism suspects or expose American interrogators to legal action.
"It's wrong for congressional leaders to make Judge Mukasey's confirmation dependent on his willingness to go on the record about the details of a classified program," Bush said.
Bush's declaration appeared to do little to stem Democratic opposition to the nominee. On Thursday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) became the fourth Democrat on the judiciary committee to declare his opposition to Mukasey.
The panel's chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), is expected to announce his position at a briefing in his home state today. Most observers think Leahy will oppose the nominee. His office declined to comment before the briefing.
Bush's comments raised the question of whether he would nominate anyone else to succeed Gonzales if the Senate rejects Mukasey. The acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, had planned to leave the Justice Department until Bush asked him to serve as a temporary steward when Gonzales departed in mid-September.
