Mukasey is an Enemy of Citizens' Rights

Considering Mr. Mukasey
Editorial, New York Times
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

"Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee to be attorney general, is being promoted as a 'consensus choice,' which is meant to signal the Senate that it should be grateful and confirm him without delay. Mr. Mukasey is clearly better than some of the 'loyal Bushies' whose names had been floated, but that should not decide the matter. The Senate needs to question him closely about troubling aspects of his record, and make sure he is willing to take the tough steps necessary to repair a very damaged Justice Department...

"Aspects of his record, however, are troubling. As a judge, he was too deferential to the government. In the case of Jose Padilla, who was accused of participating in a dirty bomb plot, he ruled that the president may detain American citizens indefinitely as 'enemy combatants.' His dangerously narrow reading of the Constitution was rightly reversed by a federal appeals court.

"In a 2004 Wall Street Journal op-ed article, Mr. Mukasey denounced the 'hysteria' of Patriot Act critics, and lashed out at the American Library Association for trying to protect patrons' privacy. He also made the dubious claim that based on the structure of the Constitution, the government should 'receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt.' And writing in The Journal this year, he promoted the truly awful idea of a separate national security court that would try suspected terrorists.

"The Senate should question Mr. Mukasey about all of this, and about the government's domestic spying program, which has operated illegally, and about which Mr. Gonzales has been unable to tell the truth..."

Read the rest here.