Wondering who will be the latest nominee to replace Tom Ridge as the director of Homeland Security? Wonder no longer.
President Bush has chosen federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to be his new Homeland Security chief, turning to a former federal prosecutor who helped craft the early war on terror strategy, The Associated Press has learned.
Chertoff headed the Justice Department’s criminal division from 2001 to 2003, where he played a central role in the nation’s legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks, before the president named him to appeals court position in New Jersey.
Bush was to formally announce Chertoff’s selection later at the White House, two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The AP.
I know a little about Chertoff and my first instinct is that he’s a far better choice than loverboy/mob associate Bernard Kerik. OK, that’s not saying much.
The good news on Chertoff, who headed the criminal division of the Justice Department and has been a judge on the 3rd Circuit, is that he’s one of only a handful of administration officials who’s publicly criticized the administration’s handling of detainees.
In a 2003 piece in the Weekly Standard, Chertoff argued, before a Supreme Court ruling on the issue, that the administration’s system of indefinitely detaining “enemy combatants” without charge, counsel or oversight was unacceptable. Chertoff called for “a long term and sustainable architecture for a process of determining when, why and for how long someone may be detained as an enemy combatant, and what judicial review should be available,” a position rejected, at the time, by the White House.
Then there’s the bad news.
First, Chertoff’s political background is not altogether pleasant. He was Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s chief counsel in the Whitewater hearings in the early-’90s. In fact, Chertoff was directly responsible for the endless stream of frivolous subpoenas that kept the absurd non-scandal’s hearings going for so long.
Second, Chertoff’s been an active member of the Federalist Society for many years. Just what we need, another Federalist Society member in the Bush cabinet.
And third, while Chertoff did the right thing by criticizing the Bush administration’s detainee policy in 2003, he was far less progressive in 2002 when he argued that during the battles of Midway and Normandy, “American soldiers weren’t asking judges permission before shooting enemy soldiers or taking them into detention.” It prompted Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick to note that it “appears to be an argument for summarily executing alleged enemy combatants.”
That said, these problems raise questions about his temperament and ideology, not expertise or qualifications. When Chertoff was nominated to the 3rd Circuit, the Senate confirmed him without controversy (95 to 1), which no doubt suggests to Bush that he’ll have a relatively easy time with the DHS confirmation process. Stay tuned.