Mukasey-related cheap shots begin

The New York Times story on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as Attorney General included this unfair passage regarding conservatives' reactions to his nomination:

But Mr. Mukasey is not viewed as a political partisan, which has troubled conservatives, many of whom were hoping the president would select Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general, as his nominee.

The implication is that conservatives wanted a "political partisan." That may be true, but supporting Olson over Mukasey is not proof of such a desire. The support for Olson seemed to be founded in large part on his well-known commitment to conservatism. In fact, many conservatives did not support Alberto Gonzales, a political partisan, as a candidate for Attorney General because of his lack of commitment to conservatism.

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall, who previously claimed that Gonzales was "irreplaceable because "the Democratic Senate is never going to give the president another Gonzales," now writes the following:

If the Bush(Cheney) White House is willing to put Judge Michael Mukasey between them and a clutch of felony indictments I come into the discussion more than a little skeptical of the guy. But Glenn Greenwald notes that as Chief Judge for the Southern District of New York, the very conservative Mukasey repeatedly sided with the rule of law over the Bush White House in the Padilla case. Worth a read.

Note how Marshall's predispositions are still coloring his reading of the evidence. If the Attorney General really is holding back "a clutch of felony indictments," wouldn't Bush have kept Gonzales or at least nominated a more obviously partisan candidate as his replacement?

Update 9/17 11:44 AM: More speculation about a secret deal from Marshall:

Does Michael Mukasey have some kind of deal with the president? As Paul Kiel notes here, Sen. Leahy (D-VT) says that before the Judiciary Committee goes anywhere with Mukasey's nomination, they want the information and documentation about the US Attorney firings that Alberto Gonzales had kept bottled up for months. Does he comply? Or is this where the fight is going to be?

Comments

[Dave White]

You keep criticizing Marshall for drawing his own (informed) inferences from the political stories of the day, which seems to be the main reason why anyone would read him in the first place. I don't get it.

[joenobody]

Bush played the ol' lesser of the evils game with the Dem's and they ate it up!!!

[ERF]

joenobody reflects the Matt Yglesias rule for Bush appointees and nominees:

-- Anyone who accepts a Bush administration job is, ipso facto, incompetent