NYT Ed: Mr. Mukasey in Denial

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/13/10960/

Mr. Mukasey in Denial
Editorial


Conservatives like to talk about personal responsibility, but Attorney General Michael Mukasey does not seem to think it applies to the Bush administration. In a speech on Tuesday, he described the shameful politicization of the Justice Department as a “painful” episode in which “the system failed.”

Mr. Mukasey made no mention of the role played by his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, and other members of President Bush’s inner circle. There is by now strong reason to believe that they were involved in plans to fire United States attorneys for political reasons, fill other important positions on the basis of partisanship rather than competence and order prosecutions designed to help Republicans win elections.

The department has never properly pursued the bad actors. It has shown no real concern for the victims. Mr. Mukasey’s cynical remarks shrugging off the whole scandal should prod Congress to pursue it even more vigorously.

The Justice Department’s inspector general and its ethics office have issued a pair of reports confirming that top aides to Mr. Gonzales improperly used political litmus tests to fill nonpolitical positions. The politics was remarkably crude. One example: a career terrorism prosecutor was turned down for a counterterrorism position because his wife was an active Democrat.

Mr. Mukasey told the American Bar Association that he did not see any crimes to prosecute. “Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” he said. In any case, the wrongdoers have been punished, he claimed, by “substantial negative publicity.”

snip//

As the nation’s top law enforcement officer, Mr. Mukasey should demand that they tell what they know - particularly about the firing of the United States attorneys - and deliver relevant documents. Instead, he has supported their baseless claims of executive privilege.

We opposed Mr. Mukasey’s confirmation because we feared that he would worry more about defending the Bush administration than enforcing the law. His speech to the bar association is further evidence that, like his predecessor, he cares more about politics than justice.

[tridim]

1. He's not in denial, he's in cover-up-everything mode for the WH.

[NC_Nurse]

2. I am so pissed that this dickless clown is the AG now. WHAT were the Dems

thinking?

[bemildred]

3. “Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,”

So, it's a kind situational thing where the government decides who to destroy and who to leave alone? What then do have laws for, when we could just have the rule of this or that big-shot? Why not jsut admit that we have the rule of men and not the rule of law? Why all the dissembling?

[C_U_L8R]

4. And what is the Bar Assoc doing about it?

Seems that Mukasey is mocking them

[lutherj]

5. It was obvious in the confirmation hearings when he refused to

comment on the illegality of waterboarding that he was just a neocon tool.