Michael Mukasey: Then and now
By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
(updated below)
Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey has become the leading spokesman for a Cheneyite national security attack, which relies on scaring Americans into believing that Obama is endangering their lives in those rare instances when he deviates from Bush's Terrorism approach. Toward that end, Mukasey has yet another fear-mongering Op-Ed, this time on today's oh-so-liberal Washington Post Op-Ed Page (along side Michael Gerson's stirring tribute to the virtues of GITMO, Bill Kristol's call for regime change in Iran, a warning from Blackstone Chairman Steven Schwarzman to stop being so mean to banks, and a Charles Krauthammer column blaming Obama for something or other). Mukasey specifically accuses the Obama administration of losing valuable intelligence by allowing Abdudlmutallab access to a lawyer, and insists that the accused Christmas Day bomber had no constitutional rights because -- despite his being detained in the U.S. -- he is merely an "enemy combatant."
But when Mukasey was a federal judge, he made the opposite arguments. In 2002, the Bush administration detained Jose Padilla at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, publicly labeled him The Dirty Bomber, declared him an "enemy combatant," transferred him to military custody, and refused to charge him or even to allow him access to a lawyer. When a lawsuit was brought on Padilla's behalf, Mukasey was the assigned judge, and he ordered the Bush administration to allow Padilla access to a lawyer. When the Bush administration dithered and basically refused (asking Mukasey to reconsider), Mukasey issued a lengthy Opinion and Order threatening to impose the conditions himself and explaining that Padilla's constitutional right to a lawyer was clear and nonnegotiable. So resounding was Mukasey's defense of Padilla's right to a lawyer that, when he was initially nominated as Attorney General, many anti-Bush legal analysts -- including me -- cited Mukasey's ruling in Padilla to argue that he was one of the better choices given the other right-wing alternatives. Indeed, I analyzed his decision in Padilla at length to argue that, at least in that case, Mukasey "displayed an impressive allegiance to the rule of law and constitutional principles over fealty to claims of unlimited presidential power," and that he "was more than willing to defy the Bush administration and not be intimidated by threats that enforcing the rule of law would prevent the President from stopping the Terrorists."
(More here.)
Salon.com
(updated below)
Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey has become the leading spokesman for a Cheneyite national security attack, which relies on scaring Americans into believing that Obama is endangering their lives in those rare instances when he deviates from Bush's Terrorism approach. Toward that end, Mukasey has yet another fear-mongering Op-Ed, this time on today's oh-so-liberal Washington Post Op-Ed Page (along side Michael Gerson's stirring tribute to the virtues of GITMO, Bill Kristol's call for regime change in Iran, a warning from Blackstone Chairman Steven Schwarzman to stop being so mean to banks, and a Charles Krauthammer column blaming Obama for something or other). Mukasey specifically accuses the Obama administration of losing valuable intelligence by allowing Abdudlmutallab access to a lawyer, and insists that the accused Christmas Day bomber had no constitutional rights because -- despite his being detained in the U.S. -- he is merely an "enemy combatant."
But when Mukasey was a federal judge, he made the opposite arguments. In 2002, the Bush administration detained Jose Padilla at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, publicly labeled him The Dirty Bomber, declared him an "enemy combatant," transferred him to military custody, and refused to charge him or even to allow him access to a lawyer. When a lawsuit was brought on Padilla's behalf, Mukasey was the assigned judge, and he ordered the Bush administration to allow Padilla access to a lawyer. When the Bush administration dithered and basically refused (asking Mukasey to reconsider), Mukasey issued a lengthy Opinion and Order threatening to impose the conditions himself and explaining that Padilla's constitutional right to a lawyer was clear and nonnegotiable. So resounding was Mukasey's defense of Padilla's right to a lawyer that, when he was initially nominated as Attorney General, many anti-Bush legal analysts -- including me -- cited Mukasey's ruling in Padilla to argue that he was one of the better choices given the other right-wing alternatives. Indeed, I analyzed his decision in Padilla at length to argue that, at least in that case, Mukasey "displayed an impressive allegiance to the rule of law and constitutional principles over fealty to claims of unlimited presidential power," and that he "was more than willing to defy the Bush administration and not be intimidated by threats that enforcing the rule of law would prevent the President from stopping the Terrorists."
(More here.)
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