NYT editorial, "Considering Mr. Mukasey": "Aspects of his record are troubling."

[DeepModem Mom]

Considering Mr. Mukasey
Published: September 18, 2007

Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee to be attorney general, is being promoted as a “consensus choice,” which is meant to signal the Senate that it should be grateful and confirm him without delay. Mr. Mukasey is clearly better than some of the “loyal Bushies” whose names had been floated, but that should not decide the matter. The Senate needs to question him closely about troubling aspects of his record, and make sure he is willing to take the tough steps necessary to repair a very damaged Justice Department.

Mr. Mukasey has attributes that could make him a good attorney general. He has been a lawyer and federal district court judge in New York, where he enjoys a good reputation. Although he is not divorced from politics (he is on an advisory committee to Rudolph Giuliani’s campaign), it is unlikely that he would run the Justice Department as an adjunct of the White House, or a booster of the Republican Party, as Alberto Gonzales did.

Aspects of his record, however, are troubling. As a judge, he was too deferential to the government. In the case of Jose Padilla, who was accused of participating in a dirty bomb plot, he ruled that the president may detain American citizens indefinitely as “enemy combatants.” His dangerously narrow reading of the Constitution was rightly reversed by a federal appeals court.

In a 2004 Wall Street Journal op-ed article, Mr. Mukasey denounced the “hysteria” of Patriot Act critics, and lashed out at the American Library Association for trying to protect patrons’ privacy. He also made the dubious claim that based on the structure of the Constitution, the government should “receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt.” And writing in The Journal this year, he promoted the truly awful idea of a separate national security court that would try suspected terrorists.

The Senate should question Mr. Mukasey about all of this, and about the government’s domestic spying program, which has operated illegally, and about which Mr. Gonzales has been unable to tell the truth.

Mr. Mukasey also needs to be asked, in detail, how he intends to fix the Justice Department....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/opinion/18tue1.html?hp

[JDPriestly]

1. Shumer is a bit of a shill when it comes to Mukasey.

Mukasey sounds like bad news to me. What are the members of the Judiciary Committee thinking.

They should continue to investigate Gonzales' conduct, continue to insist on the production of a privilege log and all unprivileged documents and the production of the subpoenaed witnesses. Congress should not give in an inch on this.

Shumer has some kind of thing about Mukasey -- can't praise him highly enough. I do not trust that a bit.

[ClassWarrior]

2. K&R

NGU.

[donkeyotay]

3. Yes, details please. How will he restore confidence in Justice?

It seems that he supports the very basis for its recent destruction, the idea that terrorism justifies changing Constitutional principles. Wasn't that the excuse that Alberto used to justify spying, secrecy, torture, secrecy, and Rule by the Right Party? The means DO justify the ends, apparently, now that everything has changed. Personally, I'd like to see someone committed to restoring the rule of law, not the ascendancy of the secret-private and permanent national security administration.