How Bush will get a very conservative man confirmed as new attorney general by a Democratic Senate:
- Secretly pick a very conservative candidate.
- Launch rumors of recommending other, more divisive and nutty candidates, Theodore B. Olson and Michael Chertoff, who have obviously no chance of being confirmed.
- Let the Dems prance against those.
- Pull out the ‘compromise’ candidate, retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey
- Let Fred Hiatt rant against the candidate for not being conservative enough.
- Bribe a ‘moderate’ Democrat, Senator Schumer, to your side.
- Point to the candidates ‘terrorism experience’.
- See the Democrats fold.
So this is what the U.S. will end up with:
Although Mr. Mukasey backed the White House by ruling that Mr. Padilla could be held as an enemy combatant — a decision overturned on appeal — he also defied the administration by saying Mr. Padilla was entitled to legal counsel.
Glenn Greenwald finds it laudable that Mukasey granted Padilla the implicitness of having a lawyer.
But the man wrongly judged that the president can incarcerate any U.S. person as an ‘enemy combatant’, simply because the president says so.
Is that a ‘compromise’ the Democrats can agree on? Seems so …
As Bill Kristol rightly predicts:
Mukasey testifying on behalf of Bush’s FISA legislation will be like Petraeus testifying on the surge. He’ll be an able public spokesman because he can’t be caricatured as a partisan apologist, and the Democrats won’t be able to lay a glove on him.
Therefore:
[C]onservatives should hold their fire, support the president, enjoy watching Chuck Schumer hoist on his own petard, and get ready for a strong attorney general for the rest of the Bush administration.
Just what the voters asked for …