{"id":12913,"date":"2007-09-17T16:15:26","date_gmt":"2007-09-17T20:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12913.html"},"modified":"2007-09-17T16:15:26","modified_gmt":"2007-09-17T20:15:26","slug":"gop-on-mukasey-nomination-were-in-an-alternate-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gop-on-mukasey-nomination-were-in-an-alternate-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP on Mukasey nomination: ‘We’re in an alternate universe’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As expected, the president officially nominated former New York district judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Also as expected, large contingents of the conservative movement just aren’t sure<\/a> how upset they should be right now.<\/p>\n

Schumer and Fielding went so far as to discuss names, and Mukasey’s came up. “We’re in an alternate universe,” says one Senate aide. “Charles Schumer saying something nice about a guy used to be the kiss of death.”<\/p>\n

The Administration also adopted the Clinton-like process of trial ballooning: leaking names through allies to see how much of a storm would ensue…. But in dropping Olson and going with Mukasey, Bush has opened himself up to attack from the right. Conservatives are worried about Mukasey’s 1994 denial of asylum for a Chinese man who said his wife had been forced to have an abortion under that country’s one-child law, which they say indicates he’s weak on pro-life issues. And though he has consistently ruled with the Administration on a number of important and high-profile terrorism cases, Mukasey broke with them in an early, crucial ruling, saying that American citizen Jose Padilla had a right to a lawyer, no matter what his status in the war on terror. […]<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans were cautiously optimistic, but still worried. “Conservatives will respond well to Mukasey if conservative leaders point in that direction,” one Senate Republican aide said Sunday. But he worried that any uncertainty among conservatives could be deadly. “Hesitation kills,” he said, “It will be perceived as weakness.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have you ever noticed how navigating through the conservative muck is a bit like working through a jungle filled with dangerous animals?<\/p>\n

In any case, within a couple of hours of the Mukasey announcement at the White House, a statement from far-right direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie landed in my inbox: “When liberals like Chuck Schumer and Ralph Nees are pleased with a nominee, conservative alarm bells should ring…. This nomination is an invitation to liberal Democrats to run rough-shod over the remainder of Bush’s politically weakened presidency. Bush is now the lamest of lame ducks.”<\/p>\n

It’s not just Viguerie.
\n
\nTP collected<\/a> a few other related reactions.<\/p>\n

* “Michael B. Mukasey: The Second Coming of Harriet Miers?<\/b>,” said a headline on the Jawa Report today.<\/p>\n

* “It also isn’t obvious that he has the management or political skills<\/b> to run an institution as big and unwieldy as DoJ – the same shortcoming that arguably led to Judge Gonzales’ difficulties,” a conservative lawyer told the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez.<\/p>\n

* Kathy at HangRightPolitics wrote “I feel somewhat deflated over the choice<\/b>. Why is it that every time I see the word consensus used by a liberal I read ‘surrender?'”<\/p>\n

* “I am not prepared to delude myself into believing that Mukasey was the best choice<\/b>,” wrote the Corner’s Mark Levin today.<\/p>\n

* A right-wing Catholic group, Fidelis, “voiced serious concerns” about Mukasey<\/b>, citing his “1994 denial of asylum for a Chinese man who said his wife had been forced to have an abortion under that country’s one-child law, which they say indicates he’s weak on pro-life issues.”<\/p>\n

* The AP reports that “some legal conservatives and Republicans have expressed reservations about Mukasey’s legal record and past endorsements and said some groups have been drafting a strategy to oppose him<\/b>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I understand the source of the grumbling — the GOP base wants a partisan ideologue, along the lines of Alberto Gonzales, only competent — but I still don’t see what all the complaining is going to produce. Can anyone imagine a scenario in which a) Senate Republicans defeat a Mukasey nomination on the Senate floor; or b) far-right discontent leads Bush to pull Mukasey from consideration?<\/p>\n

Unless something startling comes out during the confirmation process — which hardly ever happens — I think the right is setting itself up for some disappointment here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As expected, the president officially nominated former New York district judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Also as expected, large contingents of the conservative movement just aren’t sure how upset they should be right now. Schumer and Fielding went so far as to discuss names, and Mukasey’s came up. “We’re in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}