I don't know what to think. On the one hand, Bush AG appointee Michael Mukasey seems to be a stand up guy with a great resume and a solid career in civil service. On the other hand, Charles Schumer likes him. Phil reported earlier that there isn't likely to be much resistance to Mukasey, but conservatives still aren't sure whether they like this or not. On the anti- side we have Calabresi at Time:

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. Mukasey is also very close to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom social conservatives distrust.

On the pro- side we have Peter Wehrner at the Corner:

In case you haven't heard, President Bush announced the nomination of federal judge Michael Mukasey as his next (and hopefully last) attorney general.

Mukasey was appointed by Ronald Reagan, has a rep as a law and order guy and yet the Dems will probably not oppose him. Why? Because they likely suggested him among others to the White House as being acceptable. Highly unlikely the WH is looking for yet another fight with the Senate and looked for a compromise candidate.

How could Mukasey, a strict law and order guy, a right winger in most things, be a compromise candidate? Well, as a judge in the Jose Padilla case he stood up to the Bush's then AG (that would be Alberto Gonzales) and told them they needed to follow the law in prosecuting people. He was apparently suggested by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and since Schumer would be a key senator in the confirmation process, that is the telling clue.

The fact the WH is avoiding a fight over this nomination is telling as well. They really don't have the forces to take on a unified Dem team but fortunately for them, they don't have to. The national Dems keep backing away from the big fights: defunding the war and/or impeachment because they don't have the votes in the Senate. Maybe they're right but some people think they should try. There's still 16 months of this Administration and so far they have reduced America to being something less than a super power, ravaged the military, the treasury, and can't even clean up after a hurricane. They're so incompetent it boggles the mind but at least they've stopped fighting over the AG. Let's hope this one can restore some professionalism at the Justice Department. It's long overdue.

According to the AP, it would appear that President Bush may have settled on his choice for Attorney General and it is possibly (nothing is official yet) Michael Mukasey. Bush's previous top choice was the former solicitor general Theodore Olsen, the man who had become famous for successfully representing Bush before the Supreme Court in 2000 to settle the contesting of the presidency. Olsen's name, however, was pulled off the table after Democrats in the Senate threatened to block the nomination.

Mukasey would replace Alberto Gonzales, an Attorney General whose tenure was not exactly a dynamic one. In fact, many grass roots conservatives were happy to see him go as they generally considered him a fairly weak Attorney General without a clear agenda.

Mukasey is a moderate and would probably be more acceptable to the Senate, although there is some grumblings in the conservative base about his possible selection. Generally, the conservative base is lukewarm about moderates in positions of power, but there needs to be a bowing to reality on this issue. Without the votes to successfully confirm a candidate, the candidate will not be confirmed. This process of Senate confirmation was devised by the founding fathers as a means to limit executive powers and that is the way the system works.

Ted Olson has had an outstanding careers as a lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States and other positions in which he has helped the conservative cause. That would be exactly why the Democrats fear him.

Olson is expected to be the nominee for the vacant Attorney General position last held by the politically inept Alberto Gonzalez. He would be an excellent candidate for that position as he has played the political game before and would not be stupid enough to be taken down by the Democrats for something that should not even have been considered a scandal in the first place.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised a fight and it appears the GOP may just find a backbone on this one and fight for a good nominee.

Olson is hated by the Clintons as his late wife wrote a scathing book about Hillary -- "Hell to Pay" -- that was among the best of that genre. She also wrote of the last days of the Clinton administration and was merciless as well. Then, while traveling to L.A to appear on Bill Maher's show, she was killed as four terrorists slammed the plane she was on -- Flight 77 -- into the Pentagon.

Imagine if a Democratic president nominated a highly-qualified candidate for a position who has lost his wife in a terror attack. Imagine the fawning media coverage that candidate would receive. There's no way a Republican-led legislative body would vote against that candidate because the media would destroy them. Unfortunately for Mr. Olson, he's a Republican so he'll receive no mercy from Senator Harry Reid or the media.

The Justice Department's inspector general indicated yesterday that he is investigating whether departing Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales gave false or misleading testimony to Congress, including whether he lied under oath about warrantless surveillance and the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

The disclosure by inspector General Glenn A. Fine in a letter to Congress signals an expansion of the department's internal investigations into Gonzales's troubled tenure, probes that were not previously known to be focusssed so sharply on the attorney general and his testimony.

In 2004, President Bush carried around a security blanket, much like Linus in the Peanuts cartoons. In Bush's case, of course, I'm talking about the "security blanket" of the Justice Department (run by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft) and the Department of Homeland Security (run by then-Secretary Tom Ridge). All those Red, or Orange, or Chartreuse Alerts helped convince many Americans of how insecure our nation was in the wake of 9/11, and how much they needed Bush and his buddies to keep us safe.

Now the Democrats are taking away Bush's blanket. On Monday, Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales, resigned as attorney general. The Congress and the country are not so willing to go along with the president's policy anymore, and Gonzales' resignation shows this.

But can Democrats take a larger message from this? Can the 2008 hopefuls charge that the Bush Administration got too security-crazed and that we can abandon the wiretapping, the USA PATRIOT Act, Gitmo? A campaign ad for Sen. Barack Obama portrayed Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as hoping for a 1984-style state ... but will anyone call out the Bush administration for its 1984 tendencies, and say that they will never do the same?

Who's left from the crew of neo-cons that took over the nation? So far, they have reduced us to something less than a superpower, deeply in debt to just about everyone, an endless war in Iraq (and coming soon to Iran?) and a long list of elected and appointed officials who let us down. Go ahead, I dare you, take a look at the list of people who have been indicted or left under a cloud. Give yourself some time but it's worth it. A reminder of what we bought. Supposed moral order turned into the most corrupt administration ever. (and that list is from Dec. 2006)

No wonder the public is less than enthralled with Republican candidates. That doesn't mean Democrats are being given a free ride, they just don't have an R after their name. It doesn't end with the administration. Remember the NY fire fighters and police who yelled foul when Rudy Giuliani claimed to have spent as much time as they did at ground zero? Well, Giuliani spent more time at Yankees games than Ground Zero. Sen. Larry Craig was just arrested for lewd behavior in a rest room, and who knows what else happened lately. Oh yes, after scores of right wing pundits and bloggers said President Bush would not let Congress get Gonzo to resign, Bush kicked him to the curb. Heck of a job Mr. AG.

I'm sure many others thought it was a conflict of interest to have Alberto as the chief defender of the Constitution president. It's no surprise he's going (with no recess appointment either) but the circle of who is left is shrinking. There's Rice, Cheney, Hadley, Hughes, Bolton and not many others. This is a White House in bunker mentality seeking to run out the clock and hand the bag of war and debt to a Democrat. Well, the last Democrat was just plain stupid with the zipper but did a heck of a lot better with the economy, the debt, the Balkans, and our reputation. I'm not sure if we can afford to leave Dick Cheney in charge. Can we appoint a guardian for the next 15 months? I'll nominate Sandra Day O'Connor. You're welcome to nominate someone as well. We sure need some adults in charge.

So it's true: Gonzales is out, and my theory about a trial balloon is a bust as well. Trial balloons usually take a little longer. Ultimately Gonzales is not out because he fired some U.S. attorneys, or anything else he did or did not do in his official capacity. He's out because he got caught lying to senators. You don't do that and live to tell about it. The practical effect is that you have many very angry senators, and some of them are just on your side.

Nancy Pelosi says this about the potential new AG:

The nominee must also pledge to cooperate with ongoing congressional oversight into the conduct of the White House in the politicization of federal law enforcement. Hearings on the nominee will provide Congress with another opportunity to examine the new, flawed FISA law and will aid in our efforts to improve it.

So the president's nominee must promise to cooperate with Democrats on their agenda. I think we have some insight here as to why Bush has resisted a new confirmation battle for so long. It should be interesting, but wait!

Earlier this month, at a news conference, Mr. Bush dismissed accusations that Mr. Gonzales had stonewalled or misled a congressional inquiry. "We're watching a political exercise," Mr. Bush said. "I mean, this is a man who has testified, he's sent thousands of papers up there. There's no proof of wrong."

HT to Volokh, the buzz of the day is that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has run out of luck and time.

The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.

Of course there's very little to go on, but this smells very much like a trial balloon, a deliberate leak from the White House, so it may be true. The problem of course is that there is only about a year and a half left for the Bush administration, and a lengthy confirmation battle might chew up a lot of that time. If the administration is serious, they will want someone that can be confirmed post-haste.

Or this could all be a big red herring. So far, President Bush has given absolutely no indication that he was open to replacing his attorney general.

In all the hew and cry over the recent FISA vote to give expedited surveillance powers to the discredited AG Alberto Gonzales (so he could authorize wiretaps, etc without having to go to a FISA court), something important has been missed. In fact, it's possible the vote was designed to split the Dems and create a false scenario that Dems don't want to protect this country as a bonus. But the real reason was to distract attention from the "rest of the story."

This administration has been spying extensively on Americans collecting all kinds of information most of which has nothing to do with overseas communication or the 'war on terror' and much more to do with expanding the unitary executive (aka dictator). How do we know this?

Recall former acting AG Comey's testimony We heard about the hospital scene but what else is in that testimony? Recall Comey testifying that the administration was involved in something so illegal that Comey and at least eight other high-ranking Administration officials were prepared to resign had the activity continued. Let's think about that. High level career Justice Department officials don't threaten to resign over nothing.

AP via Yahoo News:

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

Late Saturday, Bush said, "The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has assured me that this bill gives him what he needs to continue to protect the country, and therefore I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk.

Nothing focuses the mind of congress critters like the possibility of a terrorist attack when this bill is undone.

The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired.

OK I tried, I really tried to get through this article at the Washington Post. My goal was to get up to speed about the whole Gonzales/NSA/perjury story. After reading through the end of the article I think I have a vague idea about what's going on, but I can't be sure because I fell asleep halfway through.

• The NSA is doing a lot of secret stuff nobody can talk about.
• McConnell, the White House and the AG are all trying to get their stories straight.
• Some Democrats are talking perjury.

If I, as a politics junkie, think this whole story is a big snoozer, what about the rest of the non-freak population? Trust me, they aren't paying attention at all. Alberto Gonzales who? I won't deny that the outrage on the left is real, or even that there might be good reasons for it.

I'll stipulate for the sake of argument that he perjured himself. Now what? Impeach him? Leaving aside the question as to whether that's even possible, is that the sort of thing the Democrats want to spend their energy on? They have a bunch of budget bills, the rest of their agenda and Iraq. Do the Democrats really want to come to the end of 2007 saying to their supporters, "well we didn't get anything good done, but we did get Bush to replace his AG?"