How Bush's AG Pick Irritates the Right

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: How Bush's AG Pick Irritates the Right
By MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON


US President George W. Bush (R) announces retired federal judge Michael Mukasey as his new Attorney General, during a press conference. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty)

If the administration was trying to avoid a fight with the left over the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales' replacement as Attorney General, they may have succeeded with the nomination of former New York district judge, Michael Mukasey. The question now is whether they'll have a fight with the right. Both in Mukasey himself, and in the process by which he picked him, Bush has gone against the right, spurning their favored choice, engaging with — and conceding to — Democrats, and naming a New Yorker who is an unknown quantity on many of the social issues about which they care most deeply.

Through weeks of quiet deliberation, Bush abandoned the confrontational pronouncements to which Congress has grown accustomed. Instead, White House counsel Fred Fielding reached out to Democrats, including Bush's constant opponent Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who had previously recommended Mukasey as a Supreme Court nominee. Schumer and Fielding went so far as to discuss names, and Mukasey's came up. "We're in an alternate universe," says one Senate aide, "Charles Schumer saying something nice about a guy used to be the kiss of death."

The administration also adopted the Clinton-like process of trial ballooning: leaking names through allies to see how much of a storm would ensue. For the better part of last week, the name of conservative darling and respected lawyer, former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, was on everyone's lips in Washington. But strong pushback from Democrats, including Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, who said he'd torpedo an Olson nomination, apparently sank his chances. "Olson would've been a bloodbath," says the Senate aide.

But in dropping Olson and going with Mukasey, Bush has opened himself up to attack from the right. Conservatives are worried about Mukasey's 1994 denial of asylum for a Chinese man who said his wife had been forced to have an abortion under that country's one-child law, which they say indicates he's weak on pro-life issues. And though he has consistently ruled with the administration on a number of important and high-profile terrorism cases, Mukasey broke with them in an early, crucial ruling, saying that American citizen Jose Padilla had a right to a lawyer, no matter what his status in the war on terror. Mukasey is also very close to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom social conservatives distrust....

There is much at stake in the nomination. Democrats are still insistent on getting to the bottom of the U.S. attorney scandal that engulfed the justice department all this year, and the question of how Mukasey will pursue that will come up in the confirmation hearings....

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1662451,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

[DFW]

1. What the confirmation hearings MUST ask, and ask repeatedly, is:

Sir, will you actively pursue the U.S. attorney scandal, and seek convictions for
any and all government officials found to have taken part in the selective firings?
Even if they are from your party, and even if they include present or former members
of the Justice Department, up to and including your predecessor, if the evidence
should so indicate? YES OR NO?

If it's a word dance, or just a flat-out "no," then back to the drawing board, and
I don't care how "moderate" he pretends to be.

[defendandprotect]

3. Ask for a Special Prosecutor -- !!! Go right to it -- !!!

[grasswire]

2. that man is cold-eyed

Geez. He has the warmth of a flounder. Brrrr.

[defendandprotect]

4. I thought he was kinda "making eyes" at Bush . . . . . !!!!

[defendandprotect]

5. Beats Olsen, but don't quite have the same confidence that Dems do about him ---

We might say "of course" about the various obvious questions that come to mind re the
firing of attorneys.....

I'd like to hear Dems and reporters start asking him about open government/FOIA -- and 5 million missing JOD e-mails????

Whether he thinks subpeonas should be honored -- and what he'd do about it if someone was trying to get out of responding in his DOJ???

What about hospital bed confrontations --- ????

Overall politization of the DOJ???

[DeepModem Mom]

6. "hospital bed confrontations" -- It would be a hoot if he were asked that question! nt

[melody]

7. He's already sold his soul to George or he wouldn't be there n/t

[defendandprotect]

8. Agree -- and he's a member of the Federalist Society; if not founding member ---

[Carrieyazel]

9. The only reason the radical right is irritated is because Schumer

came out and didn't slam him in his speech. Basically, saying that he was a decent choice.
That got the loonies up in a lather.

Schumer does a great job driving them insane. Like he did on the failed surge. I think Schumer's got the Repukes number. He definitely knows what he's doing.

[Demeter]

10. Can a Schumer Endorsement Sink Him?

I hope so.