In the next few days and weeks much will be said and written about 66-year-old retired federal judge, Michael B. Mukasey, George Bush’s choice to replace Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General.
Mukasey will assuredly be confirmed as he was on the Democrat’s short list of possible AG candidates, and within an hour or so after Sunday’s leak of Mukasey’s name, Chuck Schumer was already gushing mightily over him.
The guy is reputed to be a fair-minded, smart, experienced judge, committed in general to the rule of law.
But, before we issue any blank checks, let’s look a bit further.
In addition to many, many published opinions, Mukasey has a couple of op eds that give you a peek into the man’s thinking in his own words. You can find them here and here.
So, who is Mukasey? You tell me.
Here’s my first bounce take. Ninety percent good, conservative jurist. That other ten percent? A bit too willing to trust the administration on issues relating to terrorism. And anybody who doesn’t trust Bush Co on such issues…well, they just don’t get it.
More recently, a statute called the USA Patriot Act has become the focus of a good deal of hysteria, some of it reflexive, much of it recreational.
My favorite example is the well-publicized resolution of the American Library Association condemning what the librarians claim to believe is a section of the statute that authorizes the FBI to obtain library records and to investigate people based on the books they take out. Some of the membership have announced a policy of destroying records so that they do not fall into the hands of the FBI.
In addition to the library association, many towns and villages across the country, notably Berkeley, Calif., and Amherst, Mass., have announced that they will not cooperate with any effort to gather evidence under the statute. A former vice president has called for the statute’s repeal, and a former presidential candidate has called the act “morally wrong,” “shameful” and “unconstitutional.”
Right. Hysterical librarians. Berkeley and Amherst. In other words, (gasp) liberals who are too stupid to read the Patriot act…and who don’t understand the dangers that the Big Boys see.
Oh, please. I’ve got news, Michael, honey. Among those “hysterical” library associations who passed resolutions stating that they would not adhere to section 215 of the Patriot Act, you’ll find associations from the state of Montana, and that hoary bastion of crazy liberalism, Idaho (credit where credit is due, Larry Craig was supportive of Idaho’s librarians), and Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, North Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming….and all the rest on this list.
But, hell, I’m sure they didn’t read it, (and don’t get it). They’re only librarians.
In short: although, in many ways Mukasey seems to be a reasonably independent thinker, he has blind spots. He’s not a Bush insider, which is a relief. And he’s actually far better than the first names floated. But, still I say cuidado.
What do you say?
Too late to read those Op Eds tonight or anything else, but you’re right about one thing for sure: better read a person’s Op Ed’s before deciding to offer him a job. A good lesson for lawyers, as the Chemininsky case shows. But do you think Bush or anyone close to him can or will actually READ? And does it matter? He wants someone loyal to him in his waning term. And no way is he abandoning the Patriot Act that he built his reputation on, this late in the game. No matter what.
Which is why he stuck w/ Gonzales until the bitter end. The Q is, will this Mukasey to anything to enhance his legacy? IS there anything that can be done to enhance his legacy — or is the best the Admin. can hope for, limping off into the sunset and leaving the mess for the next guy?
With regard to Mukasey’s insider/outsider status, someone commenting at Glenn Greenwald’s site yesterday offered up a Chinese Proverb (?) which I’ll paraphrase to – The mountain is high and the emperor is far away. Mukasey may be an independent operator outside Bush’s inner circle now, but what about when he moves to the rat’s nest that is DC?
Liberal Librarian Loonies
These liberal librarians who obviously have too much time on there hands put their little world on a pedestal above the needs of the crushed lives of American victims of terrorists.
These same liberal loonies will be wailing again when terrorists strike again, wailing not at the terrorists but at the government who didn’t protect them.
You spend two days defending a left-wing lawyer over his job but now are going in the opposite direction. We expect political leanings in an Attorney General (which we connect with Presidential elections) but hope for unbiased teachings from a professor. You’re not consistent.
Regarding the next act of terrorism – and, I’ve absolutely no doubt there will be a next one no matter who is president, which political party is in ascendancy, or what political philosophy they adhere to – one might want to consider Alan Kreuger’s piece from the WaPo on September 11th. 5 Myths About Terrorism http://tinyurl.com/2cch5e
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
[…] bud Celeste at WitnessLA, however, has done a bit of digging and, lo, Judge Mukasey seems to be a bit off, shall we say? Not […]
What I always find ironic about the debate of the Patriot Act is that people who support the Patriot Act will mention the approximately 3,000 killed people in the 9-11 attacks, when every year in the United States we have over 16,000 murders and 13,000 drunken driving fatalities, which is the largest risk to me.
The same group who support the government’s right to seize library records would be up in arms if the government seized the records of gun stores. I wonder, am I more likely to be killed by someone reading a book or buying a 0.45 Colt handgun? Maybe we should also monitor liquor store sales as well?
Judge Mukasey cites the example of the “una-bomber†who read arcane books well I can think of psychos who used guns at schools such as Virginia Tech and Columbine which is a larger threat to us? The Judge mentioned Saddam having $750,000 in cash, as a reason we need to have tighter restrictions on money laundering, what a stupid example, I guess this judge did not know that Saddam was a dictator who could use the Iraqi treasury as his personal checking account. I wonder how many Arab college students or taxi-drivers sent money via Western-Union to Saddam.
The librarians should come with a clever motto perhaps “you’ll have to take this book from my cold dead handsâ€Â
LotS, your little quote can be restated by saying that you believe in situational ethics–anything is okay as long as you get what you want and no matter how contradictory to previous positions. Do you work for the Clinton’s?
BTW, I have as much or more faith in quotes from football coaches than from poets.
Yes, Woody. It is apparent to all that you have a very little mind. Authoritarians really, really need consistency to stave off the horrors of uncertainty and ambiguity for which they have little or no tolerance. It’s right in line with your sequential concrete mode of thinking and learning. You are not one bit flexible. I agree, and might even go so far as to suggest that you’re brittle, unless all this bloviation you do here is what you do for fun. One small point. That quote comes from Emerson’s essay on self reliance.
George Bush was always going to appoint a conservative – that was a given. And he blinked. Instead of going for a Ted Olsen to send a little red meat to the one third of a nation that still thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas he went with someone the Dems said they could live with.
Frankly I don’t care what his views on the PATRIOT act are. He’s nominated for the AG’s office – not a judgeship.
What the Dems need to do, however, is to use the confirmation process to extract a promise that:
A> He’ll appoint an independent counsel – or IG – to look into the mess that Fredo made of the DOJ
B> He will order the DC US Attorney to honor and prosecute any contempt citations for failure to abide by supoenas from Congress in their oversight role. Janet Reno never balked. Nither should he.
However, I strongly advise against holding one’s breath here.
No, those quickly willing to curtail civil liberties because of the Ever-present Terrorist Menace believe in situational ethics.
(See the infamous story variously attributed to Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw…… with the punch line, “…. merely haggling over the price.”)
Ah, yes, RLC. Agreed. But will they?
Score!
Chemerinsky to return as UC Irvine law dean
By Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
10:05 AM PDT, September 17, 2007
UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake and Erwin Chemerinsky have reached an agreement that will return the liberal legal scholar to the dean’s post at the university’s law school, sources told The Times this morning.
Thanks for the alert, Listener! I just put it up after seeing your post.
That is why, Celeste, I strongly urged one not to put one’s oxygen supply in peril!
Hey, RLC, when the guy starts dissing librarians, he’s automatically on my hit list. (Watch it, Pokey!)
There might be a sidebar agreement on this:
Firedoglake/ 8-30-07/ http://tinyurl.com/yvvfnp
LotS, you have no effect on me regarding what’s true about my intellect and flexibility and how I feel about myself. In fact, it’s a typical and pretty pathetic attempt by a liberal to want to appear smarter and condescending. But, your poets and philsophers are not reliable sources, and you’re not qualified to evaluate someone whom you don’t even know. Stay in your coffee shops with your liberal friends, because you’re out of your league in the real world.
Woody, if I’d had no effect, you’d feel no need to defend. Coffee shop? The nearest one is easily 10 miles away. The closest liberal is probably even farther. I suppose I could saddle up the horse, but it’s raining out today, and the horse is more comfortable in the barn.
LotS, that’s not true. You have no affect on me but you might on others, and it’s worth responding for that reason, in addition to setting you straight. See how narrow is your focus? And, shouldn’t you drop your handle from listener_on-the-sidelines since you ran onto the field of play?
Bien hecho, Celeste.
And what a special treat, Woody’s here.
If more people HAD read Mein Kampf, they, especially our leaders at the time, would have seen that Hitler spelled out his entire agenda there: his envy of Paris and Budapest as capitals, compared to uninspired Berlin (something about “a river runs through it” makes for beautiful cities), and so he felt entitled to grab one of them for his superior empire. And his whole history, HOW he came to “see” that the Jews are responsible for the world’s evils, after being raised a pretty open-minded artsy guy… The book is banned in Germany, and while they have real concerns re: skinheads, locking it up instead of studying it as part of history isn’t the answer.
BUT, if someone is reading it as history and not a manisfesto, would they have a problem with being on a list of people who’ve read it? Similarly with books or online info about making bombs, or how to do other things that could be linked to terror acts? The issue seems to be, that people are afraid that just by being on a list, they’ll be somehow suspect, because the gov’t has set it up that way: there could be a way to use this stuff for educational purposes, separate from an automatic accusation. E.g., If Osama were to write a book about HIS plans, it sure behooves us to read it rather than laugh it off, as people did with Mein Kampf. BUT that shouldn’t make a reader a suspect.
RE: L A RES, saying that you don’t see the fuss abuot 3.000 people killed when thousands die in traffic accidents and gang homicides: that is just what the anti-Americans foreigners say, who try to minimize 9/11 and say we’re using it as an excuse to conquor the world. It’s a disgraceful argument on many levels, starting with: that’s a whole lot of people in one fell swoop, plus the loss of those buildings, NY’s pride and symbol, all the many thousands whose lives were further disrupted, the firefighters who’re suffering from related diseases, and the fact that that was only intended as a wake-up call which has changed our way of life to be always fearful. Guess you think we shouldn’t pay any attention to preparing for future threats — don’t know what else to say to such a commment, except, thank G-d there aren’t many more of you out there. At least not in America.
(On other topics, like private and public after school programs for gang prevention and intervention, I’ve agreed with you, and don’t disagree that the loss of lives and futures there are astronomical and tragic. But don’t make this sort of link, to 9/11, please…)
“saying that you don’t see the fuss abuot 3.000 people killed when thousands die in traffic accidents and gang homicides”
That isn’t at all what was said. If anything’s disgraceful, it’s your evading the clearly expressed point, i.e. selective sacrifice of liberties based on actual comparative risks. The post was clear as day to anyone who has reading comprehension skills. Bringing “anti-Americanism” into your response is disgusting.
If it wasn’t clear, the point is what are the “actuarial” chances of dying in a terrorist attack, vs. automobile accidents and what are sensible cautionary procedures when the kind of government surveillance and intrusiveness that people who are actual conservatives as opposed to proto-fascists are normally concerned about.
As for who’s serious about forestalling future terrorist threats, the ports are porous as hell. BushCo hasn’t done much to truly protect us domestically and has made things much worse for the U.S. strategically via screwing the Iraq pooch. Frankly, I’m convinced some of the harder core in that wing want another domestic attack to regain political momentum they’ve lost through their monumental incompetence, dishonesty and over-reach. If you’re looking for a hotbed of “anti-Americans” – look no farther than the gang around Cheney who don’t give a damn about the Constitution and are willing to gamble our national security, treasure and lives on crazed misadventures and paranoid schemes.
“Don’t make inappropriate links to 9/11” is good advice. Too bad the Bushies have never taken it.
Once again you make an argument and they deny it; why on earth should the Patriot Act apply to the people who die in traffic accident/DUI cases or to gang activities? You make the link to the relatively few 3000 on 9/11 triggering it instead. Do you really not understand the different in nature, between intentional terrorism and accidents/ random violence? Indeed you minimize the importance, as though it were a matter of mere numbers, not a dramatically different situation with huge national security implications. “Actuarial chances” have nothing to do with the Patriot Act.
But again, the more I try to make sense of your apples and oranges, the more tangled things become. (Your third-to-last para above, I can’t begin to decipher.)
Not that the wisdom or lack thereof of the Bush administration’s military approach to Iraq has anything to do with the actuarial chances of dying in a terrorist attack vs. automobile accident, but I didn’t and don’t disagree that their simplistic approach has probably earned us more enemies in the Arab world than we had before toppling Hussein, nor would I disagree that the Cheney faction seized on the Patriot Act as a chance for them to get more power and less scrutiny.
Reg, thanks for actually reading what I wrote. I also never said anything about gang homicides I said murders, read what I actually wrote.
Ok let me reiterate my statement about the 2,900 killed in the 9-11 attacks I am NOT saying that their deaths were not important. And I also know that the people of New York will never forget about this attack, and that it had a major impact on them. Believe it or not I have talked to plenty of people from New York about this many times, especially around this time of the year.
What I am saying is that we should not over-react to this attack or place the blame on the wrong enemy or forget our constitution. I like 99% of our population was for the war against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and destroying the Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and finding their leader and operatives. We need to fight the right enemy and not arrest every Arab who looks guilty. We even had our incompetent president justifying the war in Iraq because there are “terrorists†in Iraq, well there were no “terrorists†in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power. The destabilization of that region has now created way more terrorists not less. The statement that I am Anti-American is just flat wrong this sounds like the argument made against anybody who now wants to end the war in Iraq. Maggie you should do a quick search and find out how many Latinos serve in the military even those here illegally. There is a saying in the military “An Army of Juanâ€Â.
I have heard about many enemies from our government in the past, we had the crazy Russians, the crazy North Koreans, the crazy Chinese (who we now trade with), the crazy Iranians and etc.
So the whole point of my comments is that we need to make sure our government fights the right enemy and does use a scare tactic “The Islamic Terrorists†to erode our rights or fight the wrong war. I was also making the point that the library is probably not the first place I would look for terrorists.
And I also remember the words of Woody’s favorite president George Bush, we can not let the terrorists control our way of life or they have won.
The point is that many people who would object to more intrusive incursions on, say, their intepretation of 2nd Amendment rights to deal with “XXX” deaths by gunshot are more than happy to endorse even the loopiest, most offensive violations of 1st Amendment rights with library records. It’s an analogy, that whether you agree with the specifics of a particular remedy being suggested or not, has nothing to do with trivializing the 9/11 deaths as you suggested and everything to do with noting the extreme politicization and hype of 9/11 – which is as disrespectful, indecent and inhibiting to a rational response as trivialization. It’s a pretty simple point that was totally distorted in your characterization and your subsequent “There they go again!” defense.
That’s my last word. I’m not into going around in circles with you. (I left a couple of words out of that 3rd graf from last, but I think I’ve since made the point.)
Isn’t it great to see Woody and Reg conducting a two front war. Here and at Marc’s.
Reg,
Thanks again for trying to clarifying what I actually wrote to Maggie, and doing it better than I would have.
You also wrote “The post was clear as day to anyone who has reading comprehension skills” I am sure she has superb reading comprehension skills, she most likely has a pre-conceived opinion of my political views and made an inappropriate assumption.
I also just remembered Maggie telling us about her being from New York so I will apologize to her for writing my first statement without properly paying respect to the people of New York. I was in no way trivializing their suffering I should have used a better/different analogy.
Thanks, L A. And mea culpa too, if I misunderstood what you both wrote or meant — the actuarial/relative numbers stuff kind of muddied the waters. Reg — comment #26 clarified it well.
“two front war”
rlc – I’ve actually been doing my best to avoid him in recent posts
Maggie – sorry if I was snotty.
rlc, I don’t read any of reg’s comments that exceed 300 words.