The AG Bush Needs

"For his service to his country as a U.S. district court judge, Mukasey was compelled to surrender his freedom, in a certain sense, for a decade."

David G. Savage writes in the Los Angeles Times that Mukasey "may have an opportunity to break a logjam in Washington between two opposing views: Bush administration lawyers insist that 'enemy combatants' have no rights and can be held indefinitely in military prisons, and civil libertarians argue that these accused terrorists and foreign fighters deserve all the rights of the U.S. legal system, including full hearings in federal court.

"Mukasey, 66, has proposed something in between. Writing in the Wall Street Journal last month, he tentatively endorsed the idea of 'a separate national security court staffed by independent, life-tenured judges.' He urged Congress to focus on how to 'fix a strained and mismatched legal system.'"

Michael Isikoff writes for Newsweek about Mukasey's independent streak, displayed "most notably four years ago, when he reamed out one of the Justice Department's chief lawyers in the celebrated case of 'enemy combatant' Jose Padilla."

But in a 2004 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Mukasey delivered a rousing defense of the USA Patriot Act antiterrorism law --- along with a striking argument that the government is always entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

Mukasey wrote: "When we speak of constitutional rights, we generally speak of rights that appear not in the original Constitution itself, but rather in amendments to the Constitution--principally the first 10. Those amendments are a noble work, but it is the rest of the Constitution--the boring part--the part that sets up a bicameral legislature and separation of powers, and so on."

Mukasey suggests that by refusing to put the bill of rights in the original Constitution, the drafters were sending a message "that the government it establishes is entitled, at least in the first instance, to receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt."

That attitude alone strikes me as enough to make Vice President Cheney happy about Mukasey's selection.

Indeed, here's what Cheney had to say about Mukasey in a speech yesterday: "The office of Attorney General of course has special significance in this time of war. The nation's top law enforcement officer has a duty to ensure that the rights and freedoms of the American people are protected, and that includes freedom from the fear of terrorist attack. Judge Mukasey is a fine public servant who knows from experience the challenge that terrorism presents to our country. He has presided over some of the most significant terrorism prosecutions in the history of the nation. We look forward to this good man's confirmation and to his stewardship of the Department of Justice."

The Harriet Miers Legacy

The White House apparently learned its lesson from the Harriet Miers debacle: This time, before nominating someone without in-your-face conservative credentials, get the conservatives on board.

Stolberg and Herszenhorn write in the Times that "the White House had to sell the nomination to conservatives, and over the weekend, top aides to Mr. Bush made a furious attempt to do so, inviting at least six leading conservative thinkers to the White House for meetings with Mr. Mukasey. Participants said a range of issues were discussed, from Mr. Mukasey's views on national security matters to his Republican pedigree."

From yesterday's official briefing by a "senior administration official:"