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The Choice To Revive Justice Department

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 18, 2007

President Bush confirmed yesterday his intention to nominate Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge from New York, to become the next attorney general of the United States.

Mukasey, a conservative with a reputation for being serious-minded and fair, seems a solid choice, but then so would any number of people following the tenure of the hapless Alberto Gonzales.

Die-hard conservatives will regret the president chose not to nominate former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the brilliant lawyer who successfully represented Bush before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case that resolved the disputed 2000 election.

But Olson, whose wife died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, would have provoked a political fight that Bush apparently wanted to avoid.

Still others will be wary of a nominee who has the tentative support of staunch administration critics like Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, both of whom included Mukasey on their individual lists of suitable Supreme Court nominees.

Yet whatever the ultimate reason for the president's choice, Mukasey's credentials look good on paper, and he promised immediately to provide the professional, apolitical leadership lawyers and others employed in the Department of Justice need and deserve.

His message should reassure administration detractors demanding a competent and experienced leader at the helm of the Justice Department.

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