Know your BFEE: Michael B. Mukasey

[bobthedrummer]

Supports PATRIOT ACT, very tight with Giuliani (his son works for a Giuliani firm)he was appointed by Reagan, he's retired and now the Decider is calling on Michael B. Mukasey to be AGAG's replacement-and the Decider has made more BFEE changes to the interim AG.

This sounds like more of the same, more BFEE.

Here's a link to a Talk Left page on Michael B. Mukasey-add your own take on him to this thread.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/15/202356/372

[SpiralHawk]

1. Freaking republicon homelander fascist cronies

Why do they HATE America?

[sandnsea]

2. Recommended by Schumer

As someone who puts law ahead of politics, for whatever its worth.

All the choices sucked, and were bound to suck, because Republicans suck.

[Joanne98]

3. Oh great!

[in_cog_ni_to]

4. I'm anxious to hear the questions posed to him on his connections to Guiliani.

How the HELL can anyone, in their right mind, support the Patriot Act?

Here's an opinion piece he wrote about the Padilla case that I posted last night, in case anyone is interested.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1821945&mesg_id=1821945

[lapislzi]

5. OK, but honestly, what did you expect from gwb?

He is not going to nominate Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton to be AG. bush is an ideologue, run by ideologues. That is never going to change. Frankly, I'm relieved that he didn't choose someone worse, and that's probably part of their plan too. Everyone heaves a huge sigh of relief that it isn't Chertoff, or that they haven't decided to exhume Nixon or something, and the bad-but-ultimately-predictable nominee skates through.

I am neither surprised nor angry. This is pretty much what I would have expected.

[lurky]

6. Sigh... Well, at least it's not Ted Olson.

[gratuitous]

8. Without sounding too paranoid

I think that's what the White House is hoping folks will think. "At least it's not Theodore Olson." The perceived lesser of two evils can still be pretty evil. Here's hoping the Judiciary Committee grills Mukasey like a two-dollar steak. What's left of America can't afford another body blow from this crooked administration.

[mod mom]

7. Salon: "Mukasey's Role in the Jose Padilla Case"

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2007 08:15 EST
Michael Mukasey's role in the Jose Padilla case

(updated below - Update II)
Bill Kristol claims to have learned that George Bush will nominate former federal Judge Michael Mukasey on Monday to be the next Attorney General. CNN now has a similar, though less definitive, report. While Kristol thinks the choice is a good one, many other right-wing Bush supporters do not, based on their hope for more partisan figures (such as Ted Olson), the childish concern that Chuck Schumer and Nan Aron approve of Mukasey, as well as some prior judicial rulings they dislike.

There is no question that Judge Mukasey, a Reagan appointee who served as the Chief Judge for the Southern District of New York before retiring recently, is close to the far right on the judicial spectrum. He undoubtedly holds many legal and political views which most Democrats would find objectionable, perhaps even intolerable. But that will be true of any nominee Bush selects, and it is true of the current Acting Attorney General, Paul Clement, who will remain in place if no nominee is confirmed.

I want to highlight one extremely relevant consideration concerning Judge Mukasey -- the impressive role he played in presiding over the Jose Padilla case in its earliest stages. After Padilla was first detained in April 2002 and declared an "enemy combatant," he was held incommunicado, denied all access to the outside the world, including counsel, and the Bush administration refused to charge him with any crimes. A lawsuit was filed on Padilla's behalf by a New York criminal defense lawyer, Donna Newman, demanding that Padilla be accorded the right to petition for habeas corpus and that, first, he be allowed access to a lawyer. That lawsuit was assigned to Judge Mukasey, which almost certainly made the Bush DOJ happy.

-snip
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/16/mukasey/index.html

[bobthedrummer]

9. Thanks to all-kick

IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST

[Greeby]

10. kick, but uh

Doesn't Octafish own that phrase? :P

[bobthedrummer]

11. He popularized it here, it's generic-he sure helped a lot to know their BFEE.

I got to know them personally in 1969.

IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST.

[bobthedrummer]

12. .

IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST

[warren pease]

13. You were expecting the reincarnation of Thurgood Marshall? n/t