Two-faced Schumer At It Again

President Bush is set to nominate his choice for next Attorney General and it's not Ted Olson or Michael Chertoff. It's Michael Mukasey.

Mukasey is a former federal judge (nominated by Reagan) and good friend of Rudy Giuliani. He was the first judge to hear the Jose Padilla case and managed to frustrate all parties by ruling that even an American citizen like Padilla could be held as an enemy combatant, but that such a detainee has the right to challenge that designation. His ruling is almost exactly what the Supreme Court decided a year later in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

Chuck Schumer in 2003 suggested Mukasey as a replacement for Chief Justice Rehnquist. More recently, Schumer told the White House to nominate as a new AG, "somebody who, by their reputation and career, shows that they put the rule of law first, a person like a Michael Mukasey, a person like a Larry Thompson, a person like a Jim Comey."

Of course, President Bush shouldn't have believed him. Now that Mukasey's actually being put forward, Schumer says he only "has the potential to become a consensus nominee."

Senate Republicans should be reading Schumer's prior statements about Mukasey on the floor during confirmation hearings. Repeatedly, until Schumer gets over his little two-faced lapse.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:59 AM

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