Then, when the bloom kinda started coming off that stinker of a rose, y'all started looking around for another reason to like and further Mukasey.

Then, in the middle of the week, everyone realized that Bush/Cheney's appointment of the odious AT&T and torture lawyer Peter Keisler to be the Acting AG was sort of a bad thing.  Emphasized by the simultaneity of putting Keisler in while Mukasey was making the rounds was the message - "confirm Mukasey quickly, else there will be more horrors out of and inside DoJ."

So, now, we have a twenty-year old opinion, written by someone about a year on the bench at the time, dredged up to show that somehow, just somehow, Rudy Giuliani's campaign legal adviser, former assistant, father of his law partner and all-around best lawyerin' bud is just the ticket to be the AG.

Let's look at this timeline.  Yes, Mukasey made a decision holding the Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional, for a lot of good reasons.  And those reasons (and the decisions following them) were, not too much later, repudiated by the Supreme Court when it decided that not only were the Sentencing Guidelines and Sentencing Commission constitutionally acceptable, but the Guidelines were mandatory.  And that regime continued for over 15 years, until Booker and Blakely and Fanfan and all the rest came along, on the heels of Apprendi.

Needless to say, as long as Breyer is on the Court, the Separation of Powers atrocity that is the Sentencing Commission will continue to be held constitutional, and the Guidelines will somehow retain force.

Then Mukasey spent the next 15 or so years judging cases and dutifully, rigidly applying the very same Guidelines he had previously opined were unconstutional.

So, he follows precedent and "the law".  Great!
Problem is, what is now the precedent and what is now the law at DoJ?

For example, before he left, Monica Goodling and Rove protege Brad Schlozman managed to finish rewriting the Election law enforcement procedures and policy book, to make perfectly acceptable (and even endorsed as DoJ policy) the same "scare the darker people and yield Republican wins" litigation tactics (bringing lawsuits and prosecutions about alleged election law violations immediately prior to elections) which had been decried (properly) as a scandalous intrusion of poltics into prosecutions and use of incumbency to warp elections.  Right now, what Schlozman did is the Rule of Law.

Has anyone bothered to extract a promise from Mukasey to, um, rip out the pages Schlozman wrote, from the book of law?  I kinda doubt it.

Has anyone even bothered to ask?  I kinda doubt it.

Given the way the Democrats have been blundering around - in farm talk, like newly castrated cattle - I'd bet no one has even thought to ask.

Going back to my discussion (in my diary, which you really should take the time to read), there were three reasons Mukasey ruled against the government in Padilla.  In reverse order of importance, these are:

1.  Precedent required it.

2.  He was offended that the government spirited Padilla out from under his jurisdiction.

3.  He was protecting his own power as a judge.
   

That was the most important part of his ruling in Padilla, but not for the reasons too many would be thinking.  It's not that he has any great appreciation for preserving the power of the judiciary.  It's that he was more interested in exhibiting that he will preserve and wield the power of whatever office he holds.  

Now, we are expected to believe that given the unprecedented expansion of power in the AG recently bestowed by the new FISA (among other things) and the rampant power grabs of this Admin, as yet un-undone, a judge (or any other person) whose entire career has been marked by exerting power will not use those powers?  Will not do everything in his ability to preserve those powers?

And a person who is extremely close to the leading candidate of the Rethug party will not exert (or fail to exert) those powers to benefit that candidate or harm his opponent?

And that this person would be appointed by this president to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States even though we're supposed to believe he might be at variance with the philosophy of this President?

Protecting his own power as a judge was what his opinion finding the Guidelines unconstitutional was all about.  He recognized, rightly, that the Guidelines were a huge stroke against the independence of the judiciary and a huge power grab for the executive. So, he ruled consistently to preserve his own power.

Leopards don't change their spots - and he will be entirely intellectually, morally and philosophically honest when he does everything possible to preserve (and expand) the power of the AG.