What's this persistent interest some Democrats in the U.S. Senate have in waterboarding? Once again Wednesday, they grilled Attorney General Michael Mukasey on whether waterboarding was torture. Once again Mukasey declined to answer directly.

The obvious point of repeatedly bringing up this point in the Senate is to embarrass the Bush administration and make trouble for some U.S. employees whose interrogation techniques immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, might not look so good in retrospect.

There are no real questions about the nature and definition of waterboarding, which as everyone knows by now means to make interrogation subjects feel that they are about to drown. There's no doubt that it is a form of torture and that it is not an acceptable form of putting pressure on a suspect, terrorist or not.

The government has assured everyone for some years now that the procedure is not being used. But there have been reports that it was used on major terror suspects early in the campaign against al-Qaida.

There is no advantage for the United States in the attorney general to declare, in a sworn statement to a Senate committee, that yes, of course waterboarding is torture, not just in a general sense but within the meaning of specific statutes. Think of the lawsuits that might engender if in fact the practice was ever used. (hh)