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 2024, 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.