Instead of nominating Ted Olson for Attorney General — and telling Sen. Harry Reid (D-MoveOn.org) to stick it, he chose a benchwarmer for the position instead:
If reports are correct, President Bush will nominate retired federal judge Michael Mukasey as the new Attorney General, today. This is a mistake.
It’s not that Judge Mukasey isn’t a fine man or a good judge — most reports indicate he is both.
But the impression is that President Bush avoided picking conservative favorite — former solicitor general Theodore Olson — because Sen. Harry Reid vowed to block his nomination.
What Bush fails to realize is that when you are right, picking a fight with an unpopular enemy can actually make you more popular with your base. [...]
So if Olson is clearly a respectable nominee, why not use this as an opportunity to pick a fight with the liberals who are blocking him for political purposes? I can’t help but think that presidents like Clinton and Reagan would see this sort of thing as an opportunity to score political points — not as a crisis.
Quite frankly, the President’s constant efforts to appease the nutjobs in Congress disappoint me beyond civil description.
Update: Mukasey might not get a speedy confirmation hearing if Chucky Schumer has something to say about it:
Mr. Schumer, one of the Senate’s fiercest critics of Mr. Gonzales, has long touted Judge Mukasey for a position higher than the district court judgeship he held for 19 years. In 2003, the senator recommended the judge as an eventual successor to Chief Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, he floated Judge Mukasey’s name for the attorney general position.
In a statement issued last night, the senator was somewhat guarded. “For sure we’d want to ascertain his approach on such important and sensitive issues as wiretapping and the appointment of US attorneys, but he’s a lot better than some of the other names mentioned and he has the potential to become a consensus nominee,” the statement said.
Translation: If you’re down with G-Dub, you gets no love.
You know what, I think Bush is wimping out on everything conservative. When the talk radio mouthpieces don’t even have anything good to say about the man besides his stance on the war, you’re in trouble. I’ve always thought Bush was a little light in the right. (Minus the Roberts and Alito nominations)