One of the few sharp exchanges in today's hearings on the Mukasey nomination came when Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Mukasey if waterboarding is constitutional. The AP report on the hearing explains:

During terse questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Mukasey said he did not know if waterboarding is torture because he is not familiar with how it is done.

"If it's torture?" Whitehouse responded incredulously. "That's a massive hedge. I mean, it either is or it isn't."

"If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional," Mukasey answered.

"I'm very disappointed in that answer," Whitehouse said. "I think it is purely semantic."

Mukasey looked down at his hands and took a deep breath.

In the panel that followed Mukasey's testimony, the AP article notes, Dean Hutson addressed the waterboarding issue head-on:

"Other than perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, waterboarding is the most iconic example of torture in history," said retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former Navy lawyer and dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, N.H. "It has been repudiated for centuries. It's a little bit disconcerting to hear now that we're not quite sure where waterboarding fits in the scheme of things."