McCain dodges on Mukasey.

This morning, ThinkProgress reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) strongly denounced the torture technique of waterboarding, and implicitly criticized those — such as Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey and Rudy Giuliani — who have hedged on their own views of the practice. We questioned whether McCain would hold up Mukasey’s confirmation — as many Senate Judiciary Committee members are threatening to do — until Mukasey clarifies his views. The Huffington Post posed that question to a McCain aide, who responded with a dodge:

“The Judiciary Committee process is ongoing and Sen. McCain believes that Judge Mukasey deserves an up-or-down vote based on his qualifications for the office of Attorney General,” a McCain aide said in a Friday e-mail.

A decidedly un-”maverick” reply.