By Joe Guzzardi
09/17/2007
According to a story in today’s New York Times, 66-year-old Michael Mukasey is a leading candidate to replace departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. President Ronald Reagan appointed Mukasey, who served as chief judge, in 1987. Mukasey was also a Manhattan prosecutor when Rudolph Giuliani was the United States attorney. Among Mukasey’s strong points is, according to the Times, his familiarity with terrorism issues. [Bush May Name Former Federal Judge to Succeed Gonzales,New York Times, David Johnson, September 16, 2007]In 1993, Mukasey sentenced Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the Blind Sheik to life in prison for his role in a plot to blow up the World Trade Center and tunnels in the Wall Street area. In 2003, as chief judge, Mukasey ruled that dirty bomber Jose Padilla was an enemy combatant but entitled to access to his lawyers.
But Richard Viguerie, founder of the website Conservatives Betrayed.COM urges President Bush to pick the most conservative possible choice for attorney general for the express purpose of picking a fight with the Democrats and to reassert the role of conservatives in government. Viguerie’s op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times,
”Use the A.G. Appointment to Pick a Fight,”
advises Bush:
”to restore his relevancy and revive the Republican coalition by deliberately picking an ideological fight with the Democrats.”
Read Viguerie’s column here. Viguerie has also written a book about the decline of conservatism titled ”Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause."
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