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November 21, 2008 10:35:59 AM CST

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The Right’s Beef With Mukasey? The Left Doesn’t Hate Him

Posted Sep 18, 07 7:37 PM CDT in Politics,  US 

(Newser) – The GOP is uneasy with Bush’s choice for attorney general, but only because liberals don't despise him, says Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick. Unlike Roberts and Alito, Michael Mukasey doesn’t know “all 17 twists in the Federalist Society's secret handshake”—leaving open the chance that he might be (gasp!) an independent thinker. Yet Mukasey is no "renegade outside-the-Beltway badass" either.

He's also no lover of the left, having endorsed the Patriot Act and the idea that liberty must "keep itself—and us—alive." But his independence from the White House will infuse life into the DoJ, Lithwick writes, and since Mukasey insisted on a lawyer for Jose Padilla, he “can surely appreciate why now, more than ever, the country needs one, too.”

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Senate Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., right, meets with Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, left, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)   (Associated Press)
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, meets with Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, left, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007. (AP Photo/Dennis...   (Associated Press)
US NEWS ATTORNEYGENERAL 11 MCT   (KRT Photos)
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Bush administration • War on Terror • Michael Mukasey • John Roberts • Samuel Alito • Patriot Act • Ruth Bader Ginsburg


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