The Politics of Justice

The inevitable grows more so today... Michael Mukasey will be the next Attorney General.

The critics of Mukasey's critics don't understand why there were so many last-minute efforts to derail his nomination. Isn't this the guy you wanted, they asked? Shouldn't you just be glad that Gonzales is gone and move on?

But the primary crime of Alberto Gonzales was not his stonewalling and obstruction of numerous congressional investigations, as became the scandal toward the end... it was that he was not an independent law enforcement agent. He was a Bush crony, pure and simple. Together, with Karl Rove and other diehard loyalists, he turned the Department of Justice from a independent agency with some general political ideals into a full-blown partisan arm of the RNC. He was also a willing enabler, in a way that retroactively made John Ashcroft (!) seem somewhat honorable, of the neocon worldview of unaccountable executive power in a time of (endless) war.

All critics wanted from the AG nominee for Bush's final year was a sign that would change.

And so we got Michael Mukasey, who appeared to be a decent compromise nominee. His first day of testimony-- in which he declared torture unconstitutional and spoke of the importance of the rule of law in a time of war-- was reassuring. But then day two of testimony came, and it appeared Mukasey had been corrected by his new bosses overnight. Now he refused to even acknowledge what torture was. He declared the President has a Nixonian right to break laws he declares bothersome. He was dismissive and secretive.

And the response of Democrats-- despite principled opposition from the reliable good ones-- was 'Fuck it, let's confirm him anyway'. Best to just do it and move on to being embarrassed by the President over the next issue.

And so Charlie Brown is again flat on his back while Lucy retains her hold on that football.

Certainly, Attorney General Mukasey cannot do any greater damage to the Justice Department than ol' Abu Gonzo did. But he doesn't exactly appear in a rush to undo the status quo his predecessor set up either. And no other nominee from Bush would have been better; let's not kid ourselves there.

But worse than that is the precedent that this sets. All of these horrible things-- that 15 years ago we couldn't even fathom-- are now standard, sanctioned operating practice of the U.S. of A. Even the best President will have a tough time dialing all this back. The abuses of the Cold War era were dialed back after Watergate, of course. And all it took was one bad day for us to chuck those reforms away. Fixing the system again will be that much harder.

Andrew Sullivan has more. There's still at least another year left of this nightmare.