"Let's give Bush what he wants. We can't afford to risk making any waves before the elecion next year. Besides, Bush'll just mess up again and we'll look better by comparison. Right?"

Seems like a straightish shooter.

...Bush would realize the need for an Attorney General nominee who is above reproach and would put forward former Senator John Danforth of Missouri.

Alas. It is the last thing I actually expect.

Bravo, Mr. Greenwald, for calling out the Democratic complicity (and duplicity) on their betrayal barometer, where they have consistently appeased this rogue administration on their appointments, swallowed the assurances, dissembling, and out-and-out lies, and given them what they wanted, only to express shock and dismay when they find that the reactionary Trojan Horses they confirmed to vital positions proved to be incompetent and/or dishonest.

That excuse is not going to work again. Relying on assurances from some current Bush appointee that they will act independently is woefully and self-evidently insufficient. Only a truly outside figure, one who is entirely independent of the Bush circle, should be acceptable.

This is, agreed, vital, but would the Bush League even offer this, given how successful they've been in the past at getting their way, even in the face of crumbling polls? And would the Democrats have the stomach to fight the administration on these issues, given their terrible track record to date? I wouldn't be surprised if the Bushies play the most cynical symbolic hardball politics on this appointment; everything they'll do will be with an eye to put a black eye on the Democrats in 2008, however they can.

It should be an interesting fight, if the Democrats (PRETTY PLEASE!!) choose to make a fight of this. There's no peace through appeasement, Democrats. Please remember that.

I'm as thrilled as anyone that the Democrats may finally be able to exert some influence on this administration by way of the nomination process for a new Attorney General. But be careful what you wish for: If Bush can't shove someone through, he'll resort to a recess appointment. And then we'll all be stuck with another toothless Attorney General until the end of this Congress' term, which, coincidentally, will not end until Bush is out of office in '09.

Glenn doth spake:

OK - let's just ignore it all then. It's all so hopeless. They are Winners. There is nothing poor us can do about any of it.

It would likely be better to ignore the DOJ at this point. It really is totally wrecked and totally nonfunctional and untrustworthy at this point. It CAN'T get worse than the totally exploded DOJ we have now. If a ship's captain is steering a boat towards the rocks at high speed, is there really any difference in outcome to simply taking that captain out and letting the ship steer itself onto the rocks? That is the situation we are in now. And Glenn, the ONLY reason I say this right now is that there is just a little over a year left in Bush's ignoble term and the Dems have proven that they are incapable of acting responsibly or in their own best interests (in the objective sense rather than the political calculus they keep fumbling around with), let alone the interests of the People as a whole. They have proven and even stated (the Dems) that they just wish to run out the clock on Bush and breath a sigh of relief once he's gone. Of course, they are totally corrupt in doing this as I suspect that the main reason for it is that they are totally OK with virtually everything that Bush has done and simply want his Unitary toys for a Dem Prez, but that is another story... The Dems cannot be counted on here so given this reality, it would actually be better to just let the DOJ coast into the rocks rather than have the Dems enable another criminally insane captain to continue actively steering the ship into the rocks.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267724,00.html

Transcript: Sens. Schumer, Specter on 'FOX News Sunday'
Sunday, April 22, 2007

SCHUMER: Let me say, if the president were to nominate somebody, albeit a conservative, but somebody who put the rule of law first, someone like a Larry Thompson, somebody like a Jim Comey, somebody like a Mike Mukasey, my guess is that they would get through the Senate very, very quickly.

- - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267724,00.html

Larry Thompson was Deputy Attorney General before Comey held that spot. (The DAG is the number two position in USDOJ.) Thompson was also in charge of President Bush's "special task force" to root out corporate fraud. The so-called "Thompson Memo" set out new guidelines for prosecuting corporations, but was quickly replaced by the so-called "McNulty Memo". Thompson is now the General Counsel at PepsiCo.

Mukasey was the author, last week, of a WSJ opinion article:

http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010505

Jose Padilla Makes Bad Law
Terror trials hurt the nation even when they lead to convictions.

BY MICHAEL B. MUKASEY
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

[...] There have been several proposals for a new adjudicatory framework, notably by Andrew C. McCarthy and Alykhan Velshi of the Center for Law & Counterterrorism, and by former Deputy Attorney General George J. Terwilliger. Messrs. McCarthy and Velshi have urged the creation of a separate national security court staffed by independent, life-tenured judges to deal with the full gamut of national security issues, from intelligence gathering to prosecution. Mr. Terwilliger's more limited proposals address principally the need to incapacitate dangerous people, by using legal standards akin to those developed to handle civil commitment of the mentally ill. These proposals deserve careful scrutiny by the public, and particularly by the U.S. Congress. [...]

- - Mr. Mukasey was the district judge who signed the material witness warrant authorizing Jose Padilla's arrest in 2002, and who handled the case while it remained in the Southern District of New York. He was also the trial judge in United States v. Abdel Rahman et al. Retired from the bench, he is now a partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in New York.