By Neil the Ethical Werewolf I'm not yet on board with all the No-on-Mukasey sentiment. The Harriet Miers episode taught me that you never judge a president's nominees in a vacuum -- you always think about who will be appointed next if the current nominee falls through. And while Mukasey is bad, we've had -- and could have -- worse. If someone can make a case that the next nominee will be any better (Ted Olson is worse), or that rejecting all nominees and keeping Peter Keisler as Acting Attorney General is a better plan, I'll be happy to change my mind. If this were the first year of the Bush presidency, I'd think differently. It'd be valuable to send Bush a message that he can't nominate jackasses who claim not to know whether waterboarding is torture. But we're just a year from elections and Bush is close to gone. What matters is making sure that the 2008 elections are free from Gonzales-style interference. If the Attorney General is a GOP fixer (Ted Olson), plotting dirty tricks to help his friend of 25 years, Rudy Giuliani, win the presidency, it'll be a greater blow to the cause of freedom than if Mukasey is permitted a year as AG under a lame-duck president.
