This may be the most revealing bit of Michael Mukasey's testimony today: Whether waterboarding is torture, the attorney general says, requires a balancing test of the costs v. the benefits.

So there you have it. In the view of the Justice Department, there is no categorical prohibition against the torture of detainees, even under the Detainee Treatment Act.

Waterboarding has become proxy for a whole host of torture methods that traditionally would be considered torture, and so the balancing test set out by the attorney general is not limited to waterboarding.

Late Update: Sen. Durbin followed up on this line of questioning. Mukasey basically put Congress on notice that they have to outlaw waterboarding or quit asking questions about it.