Via the BBC: Musharraf to ‘quit as army chief’

Gen Musharraf will resign from the powerful post after the presidential elections, said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the PML’s secretary general.

He is seeking re-election by parliament before its term expires in mid-October.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court meanwhile is debating his right to remain army chief if he stands for president again.

One has to love the move to resign after the election. Of course, from a power politics point-of-view, it makes sense for him to wait, given that much of his current power derives from his position as head of the army, but after the elections his position as president would theoretically be strengthened by having the position confirmed by being elected to office (as opposed to getting their via coup). Of course, we aren’t talking popular election, but rather election by the parliament.

The story notes the target date for the resignation to be by November 15–the date of his swearing-in.

All of this has to do with a potential power-sharing agreement with former PM Benazir Bhutto.

It is noteworthy that Musharraf has not publicly acquiesced to any of this to date.

Via WaPo: Ex-Judge Is Said to Be Pick At Justice

President Bush has selected retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey as his new attorney general, sources said yesterday, moving to install a law-and-order conservative at the Justice Department while hoping to avoid a confirmation fight with Senate Democrats.

I guess that the story over the weekend was something of a trial balloon, and that it went over sufficiently well to proceed.

My thoughts initial thoughts on the situation can be found here.

In some ways I am surprised that the administration has decided to go this route, as it is somewhat uncharacteristic insofar as it isn’t a move designed to appeal to the base, but rather has some consensus-building elements to it. And, interestingly, it is also the first post-Rove appointment.

Of course, expect a little bit of fight out of the Democrats, as this is politics, after all.

Speaking of politics, it is interesting to note that Mukasey has some ties to Giuliani, insofar as he was a prosecutor who worked under Giuliani and his judgeship was served in New York.

Via the NYT: U.S. Seizes Suspect in Killing of Sunni Sheik in Iraq

An American military statement announced the arrest of the suspect, Fallah Khalifa Fayyas al-Jumaili, after a raid near Balad, north of Baghdad. Mr. Jumaili, also known as Abu Khamis, had been involved in a plot to kill several Sunni leaders working with the Americans against Sunni extremists, the statement said.

The story does not indicate with whom the individual in question is affiliated (i.e., whether he is with AQI, another Sunni faction or what).

Via the NYT: Bush May Name Former Federal Judge to Succeed Gonzales

The former judge, Michael B. Mukasey, has been cited as a candidate since Mr. Gonzales announced his resignation. Mr. Mukasey is a respected jurist but is not well known in Washington legal circles, and some Republicans say he seems too close to Democrats who have been fierce administration critics.

[…]

Mr. Mukasey, 66, spent 19 years as a federal judge in New York, including serving as chief judge, after being appointed by President Reagan in 1987. Before that, he was a prosecutor in Manhattan when Rudolph W. Giuliani was the United States attorney.

He presided over the 1993 trial of Omar Abdel Rahman (the “Blind Sheik”) regarding the first bombing of the WTC and also presided over a case concerning Jose Padilla:

In 2025, as chief judge, he ruled that Jose Padilla was an enemy combatant but entitled to access to his lawyers.

Some Republicans oppose his appointment, it would seem, because he is a candidate that some Democrats have supported in the past. To wit: he was suggested to President Bush via Senator Schumer as a possible SCOTUS nominee.

There are concerns about his managerial experience as well, a problem which strikes me as rather valid given the mess that Alberto Gonzales is leaving behind.

While I remember seeing Mukasey’s name before, I have no opinion about whether he ought to be appointed or not, although his resume appears adequate to the task. Regardless, the issue that strikes me the most at this point is that he could represent a consensus candidate, or at least enough of one to avoid too messy a confirmation fight and therefore lead to a relatively swift (and successful) confirmation vote.

It would be a refreshing change of pace for the administration to try and avoid, to some degree at least, direct confrontation when it isn’t necessary. There is no reason why the President can’t find and appoint someone non-controversial for this slot. More to the point, the political stars are aligned in a way that essentially dictates that he do so. We can start with the following basic ingredients: a outgoing AG who demonstrated (at best) substantial incompetence in the job and a President with rather low approval ratings. Then let’s throw in the constitutional environment, which is no small issue: the opposition controls the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to reject the nominees that the President sends over. If they want to make it difficult, they have every institutional right to do so. Further, the political environment in which that power rests has been considerably strained by the recalcitrance of the administration in cooperating over issues concerning the DoJ, and therefore it is hardly surprising that the Democrats in the Senate are hardly in a cooperative mood.

In short: the politics of the moment mitigate against the ability of the President to have whomever he wants in the AG slot and the constitution legitimately empowers the Senate to block what the President wants if he doesn’t seek some modicum of compromise.

(And yes, I am fully aware that the Democrats’ actions are often fueled by partisan political goals as well, but then again the political climate aids them in that area).

Nonetheless, some think that the President should take the opportunity to pick a fight. For example, Richard Viguerie in the LAT last week:
Use the A.G. appointment to pick a fight. Much of the column is written in the basic genre of politics as a fistfight, and he slings such terms as “spineless” in the direction of any who would suggest not turning the nomination into a fight.

I will agree with Viguerie in one key way. That would be:

He can select someone with a record of support for the basic liberties that are the birthright of the American people.

The administration has treated with disdain those who express concern over violation of these liberties.

Via Deportes:

• Fear the T
• Auburn Appears to be Not Very Good This Year
• If I Could Change One Rule in College Football…
• Line of the Day
• Update: Unless You are a Tide Fan…

Marc Lynch, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University has a essay up at TAP that is very much worth reading as it gets to the facts on the ground in Anbar that are at odds with the sunny (no pun intended) assessments that are coming from the administration about what the situation in Anbar is and what it means: Sunni World

Alas, while the president’s men may have discovered Iraq’s Sunnis, they still show little sign of actually understanding them. The cheerleaders for the surge have constructed a Disney-esque fantasy of an Iraqi “Sunni World” which might as well be in Orlando for all it has to do with the grim realities of today’s Iraq.

This is why the following statement from the President’s speech this week so problematic:

The local people were suffering under the Taliban-like rule of Al Qaeda, and they were sick of it. So they asked us for help.

Taken at face value, the President weaves a narrative in which the Sunnis in the region had been essentially conquered by AQI, which resulted in the rebellion of the locals who, in their desperation, called on the US for help.

However, as Lynch notes,

The Sunni turn against al-Qaeda had very little to do with American diplomacy or military efforts, and far more to do with local power struggles and preparations for the widely-expected coming war with the Shia. The origins of this shift in Sunni politics date back to last year’s attempt by al-Qaeda in Iraq to impose its hegemony over the Sunni insurgency and to establish physical and political control in a variety of locales.

Indeed, Lynch makes a very compelling argument that the behavior of the Sunni is all about internal Iraqi politics and very little to do with the administration’s public view of the situation. I would recommend the entire piece to all those interested in this situation.

Via WorldNetDaily: Keyes looks to rescue GOP, announces run for president.

Erwin Chemerinsky in a piece in today’s LAT:

My concern is that the message from this episode, especially for my more junior colleagues who may aspire to be deans someday or, for that matter, judges, is that if you speak out — liberal or conservative — you may lose your chance at a position that you really want.

I promise to stop blogging on this UCI law school dean business soon. However, I find the situation fascinating for a variety of reasons. Partially because I have a degree from UCI, but I also have professional and intellectual interests in the issue of the role of ideology in academia.

At any rate, if there is any doubt remaining about the political pressures being put on UCI’s Chancellor Drake, here’s more evidence via the AP: GOP politician sent email asking how to stop naming of dean

A conservative Los Angeles County politician asked about two dozen people in an e-mail last month how to prevent the University of California, Irvine from hiring renowned liberal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as its founding law school dean, a spokesman for the politician said Friday.

Making Chemerinsky the head of the law school “would be like appointing al-Qaida in charge of homeland security,” Michael Antonovich, a longtime Republican member of the county Board of Supervisors, said in a voicemail left with The Associated Press.

First off, what is with such a ridiculous analogy? Of the things that hiring Chemerinsky would be like, none of them would be like hiring al-Qaida to run homeland security.

Second, why should a County Commissioner be involved in trying to influence an academic hire? And for that matter, UCI is in Orange County, not Los Angeles County.

Of course, Antonovich crossed swords with Chemerinsky over the LA County seal, which would explain his basic interest, even if it doesn’t give him any particular standing regarding personnel decisions at UCI.

Meanwhile, Drake has unleashed a firestorm on his campus:

“What’s happened here is so outrageous, it’s beyond anything that anybody could have imagined happening,” said Mark P. Petracca, chair of the political science department.

Petracca said professors were angry that Drake hasn’t given a full explanation for his decision, except to say at a faculty meeting Thursday that he spoke with 12 people about Chemerinsky before withdrawing the offer. He wouldn’t say who those people were, Petracca said.

“What information did the chancellor get? We don’t know that and the chancellor’s silence on that leaves the door open for people to speculate on Erwin’s character,” he said. “Politically, it would be the best thing for all parties involved … if (Drake) were to resign.”

[…]

An academic assembly meeting was expected next week, Petracca said, where professors might consider a vote of no-confidence against Drake and pass a resolution calling for his decision to be rescinded.

And for trivia’s sake, I took one of Petracca’s classes as a freshman.

On the heels of yesterday’s discussion about the odd maneuverings of UCI Chancellor Micheal Drake, we have the following via the LAT: UCI reportedly working on a deal to rehire Chemerinsky

UC Irvine officials on Friday were attempting to broker a deal to once again hire liberal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of its fledging law school, just three days after its chancellor set off a national furor by dumping him.

[…]

An agreement would be an extraordinary development after Chemerinsky contended this week that Drake succumbed to political pressure from conservatives and sacked him because of his outspoken liberal positions. The flap threatened to derail the 2025 opening of the law school and prompted some calls for Drake’s resignation.

Also Friday, details emerged about the criticism of Chemerinsky that the university received in the days before Drake rescinded the job offer, including from California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who criticized Chemerinsky’s grasp of death penalty appeals. Also, a group of prominent Orange County Republicans and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich wanted to derail the appointment.

As the story evolved it become clearer and clearer that indeed, yes, the issue at hand was ideological, which is unfortunate. It also males Drake look bad, as he has insisted that, in fact, the withdrawal of the job offer had nothing to do with politics.

Indeed, the following suggests that politics was very much at issue:

Michael Schroeder, one of Orange County’s most powerful GOP political players, said a group of 20 prominent Republicans organized against Chemerinsky in recent weeks, believing him to be a “longtime partisan gunslinger” and too “polarizing” for the job.

Another member of the group, who asked not to be identified, said Drake’s cellphone number was distributed so the protesters could call the chancellor.

And then there’s this:

Any deal would therefore require Chemerinsky to “successfully transition from being a very outspoken advocate on many causes to being a dean of the stature that we expect in a start-up law school,” said Malcom, a prominent Orange County Republican who was going to be a member of Chemerinsky’s advisory board.

On the one hand, I can understand why one might want a dean to be less controversial than a professor, it is not clear to me why it would be in the University’s overall best interest for Chemerinsky, or any potential dean to eschew being a public intellectual. One wonders if Malcom would feel that way if the potential dean was a prominent conservative intellectual.