Michael B. Muchasey is a retired federal judge. He presided over the Jose Padilla case, the trial of the "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, and the insurance case resulting from the destruction of the World Trade Center.
He is a graduate of Columbia and went to Yale for law school.
He might also be our next Attorney General. CNN is reporting that he is on the short list of possible nominees.
But just in case you think that we're dealing with a reasonable and responsible jurist, I point you to the following op-ed in which he argues that "Terror trials hurt the nation even when they lead to convictions."
That's right, the convictions of terrorists hurt America.
Not because they involve detainees who have been tortured or mistreated, or secret information not available to the defense. No, this respected jurist does not care about the damage done to the rule of law or our constitutional protections. Rather, he is terrified that the trials give valuable information to the terrorists.
Then there is his brilliant reasoning about Guantanamo and why its lack of oversight is in the detainees and suspected terrorists' best interests.
Perhaps it bears mention that one unintended outcome of a Supreme Court ruling exercising jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees may be that, in the future, capture of terrorism suspects will be forgone in favor of killing them. Or they may be put in the custody of other countries like Egypt or Pakistan that are famously not squeamish in their approach to interrogation--a practice, known as rendition, followed during the Clinton administration.
Mukasey is obviously just what the Justice Department needs to restore Americans' confidence in their legal system: A judge who does not have confidence in our legal system.
He is the perfect Republican nominee. A Judge who does not believe in the judicial system for a government that does not believe in governing. It's poetic in it's sickening predictability.
But don't worry, I'm sure our Democratic Congress has the spine to stand up to Bush and reject Mr. Mukasey if he is the nominee.