Editorials

Michael Mukasey was approved as the new U.S. attorney general late last year with bipartisan support because he was expected to return integrity to the Justice Department.

It is now clear he has no intention of doing that.

Here's why. Mukasey has not aggressively pursued the investigation of what were clearly the politically motivated firings of a number of U.S. attorneys across the country. He has not aggressively pursued the investigation of what very well may have been the politically motivated prosecutions of several Democratic politicians, including former Gov. Don Siegelman. And now the attorney general has decided not to prosecute political appointees in the DOJ who hired or did not hire personnel based on their ideological leanings, a blatant violation of the law.

But as Mukasey told a gathering of the American Bar Association earlier this week, "Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."

In his now typically cavalier response, Mukasey went on to say that those people who had been hired at the Justice Department — though many are terribly under-qualified — would keep their jobs and those people who were not hired — though they were clearly qualified — were encouraged to apply again.

Let's be clear. This isn't about the under-qualified losing their jobs or the prosecution of the under-qualified and naïve who broke the rules. And it is much less about breaking the law.

This is about an attorney general who is doing absolutely nothing to stabilize an institution that is part of the very foundation of this nation.

What makes Mukasey's behavior so disappointing is that he was seen as the savior of a Justice Department that had been politicized and brought low by the disastrous leadership of Alberto Gonzales. A former federal judge with a reputation of toughness, fairness and diligence, Mukasey was supported by two high-ranking Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, clearing the way for his confirmation.

Mukasey, however, is not the man fellow New Yorker Sen. Charles Schumer thought he was last year when he voted to confirm the man. Rather, he is a loyalist to this administration, no matter the destruction it brings to the nation or its institutions.

Don't look for Mukasey to go. It is too late for that. He, like everyone else in the Bush administration, is simply running out the clock until inauguration day 2009.

Let's simply hope he won't cause any additional damage between now and then.