Earlier, Joe Gandelman joined the cast of those predicting Mukasey was “in” for U.S. Attorney General.

Elsewhere, the NYT ed board encouraged Senators to give Mukasey the third degree, regardless of the pre-hearing buzz, noting the extensiveness of the prior-inflicted wounds at (and via) the DOJ.

Apparently, the Senators on the panel listened to the NYT, threw their best split-fingered fastballs at the prospective AG … and Mukasey knocked ’em out of the park, especially on the subject of torture — so much so that Andrew Sullivan thought Mukasey sounded a lot like a certain Democratic Senator from Illinois who’s not running for President.