Two short weeks ago, it looked as if the White House wanted to play nice when it came to replacing Alberto Gonzales. The NYT reported that the Bush gang had even gone so far as to ask Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee for input on the next Attorney General nominee. “In the past,” Chuck Schumer said told the Times, “the White House has talked about consultation, but they were the most wooden conversations I ever had. This was the first time there was a real back and forth.”
See? Isn’t bipartisan cooperation fun? We can all get along!
Wait, scratch that. The White House had some real back and forth, but has narrowed its short list to two candidates who will almost certainly draw the Senate majority’s ire.
The White House is closing in on a nominee to replace Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, with former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson considered one of the leading candidates, administration and Congressional officials said Tuesday.
Reports of Mr. Olson’s candidacy suggested that President Bush, in choosing the third attorney general of his presidency, might defy calls from Democrats and choose another Republican who is considered a staunch partisan to lead the Justice Department. Mr. Gonzales is departing after being repeatedly accused of allowing political loyalties to blind him to independently enforcing the law.
“Clearly if you made a list of consensus nominees, Olson wouldn’t appear on that list,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who led the Judiciary Committee effort to remove Mr. Gonzales.
As recently as a few days ago, several news outlets ran a list of five candidates who were the most likely nominees, but three have reportedly bowed out of consideration, leaving Olson and George Terwilliger, a former deputy attorney general, with Olson reportedly the frontrunner for the job.
It’s as if the White House only knows how to call one play: pick a partisan loyalist, and in the process, pick a fight.
Olson, in particular, would be one of the more offensive nominees possible. Alberto Gonzales allowed politics and partisanship to corrupt the Justice Department. If the point is to improve the DoJ, it doesn’t make any sense to pick a notorious and shameless partisan to be the latest Attorney General who can’t separate political interests from the law.
The NYT report noted that the administration believes that Dems “will pay a political price if they try to block confirmation of a new attorney general. The thinking inside the White House is that Democrats cannot call for new leadership at the Justice Department, then block it.”
That’s painfully ridiculous. The White House’s argument, in this sense, would effectively be, “You wanted a change, so we’ve replaced one conservative partisan with another. Why are you complaining?”
Olson’s record is unambiguous. In the 2000 recount fiasco, it was Olson who represented Bush in Bush vs. Gore. Before that, Olson was on the board of directors for The American Spectator when the right-wing magazine launched its “Arkansas Project” — a multi-million dollar smear campaign financed by Richard Mellon Scaife to drag down Bill Clinton’s presidency through scandals, even if that meant making stuff up.
What’s more, when nominated as Solicitor General in 2001, Olson appears to have lied about his role in the anti-Clinton initiative. (The Senate voted to confirm him, 51-47, despite his past. He’d have a much tougher time if nominated for A.G.)
Olson would be an insult — which is probably why it’s so likely.
Stay tuned.