Bush’s last Attorney General threatens America

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So often, I want to give the architects of President Bush’s war on terrorism the benefit of the doubt, to just believe that they really sincerely only want to protect America.

But then I remember certain things.

For instance, I remember when John Yoo, the leader of the cabal Dick Cheney installed in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, contemplated the circumstances under which the President would be able to suspend our Constitutional right to free speech.

And then there’s today’s oped in the Wall Street Journal by Michael Mukasey, President Bush’s final Attorney General. We all knew Judge Mukasey was essentially a placeholder to run out the clock for the Bush DOJ. The President had not foreseen replacing Alberto Gonzales in the position, but Gonzo gave such a marvelously incompetent performance that Bush had to change one of the most powerful members of any president’s Cabinet with less 15 months to go in his term.

But it turns out Mukasey is much more in line with Cheney’s paranoid legal philosophy than I expected. In an otherwise droll and technical explanation of why the Justice Department needs to retain a number of tools in its counterterrorism belt, Mukasey writes:

Those who indulge paranoid fantasies of government investigators snooping on the books they take out of the library, and who would roll back current authorities in the name of protecting civil liberties, should consider what legislation will be proposed and passed if the next Najibullah Zazi is not detected.

via Michael B. Mukasey: Don’t Weaken Our Terrorist Intelligence-Gathering Capabilities – WSJ.com.

Wow: suck it up now, civil libertarians, or get ready for the executive branch’s expansive authoritarian grasp next time a bomb goes off. What a heartfelt message to send to America.

It’s statements like this that make it hard to believe that they’re only concerned about America’s security. Such a dour threat of lawlessness in the face of terrorism makes me feel like Mukasey values the checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution much less than he promised when he became either a judge or our Attorney General.