President George W. Bush listens to Judge Michael Mukasey on Monday, Sept. 17, 2007, in the White House Rose Garden. White House photo by Chris Greenberg.

by James Oliphant

President Bush sent a signal today that that his administration hopes to put to rest the controversies that have engulfed the Justice Department, naming a former federal judge as the nation’s new attorney general.

Michael B. Mukasey, who served as a judge in the Southern District of New York for more than 18 years, isn’t a traditional choice for an administration that has typically favored known conservative commodities in key high-level posts. But he is a jurist experienced in dealing with national security issues, and his nomination has already drawn cautious praise from Democratic and Republican senators alike.

“The attorney general has an especially vital role to play at a time of war,” Bush said Monday at the White House while introducing his nominee. “Judge Mukasey is clear-eyed about the threat our country faces. He knows what it takes to fight this war effectively.”

Mukasey emerged as the leading contender for the position late in the selection process, as more well-known conservative candidates fell by the wayside. Last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader, said former Solicitor General Theodore Olson would not be confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate. That apparently pushed the White House toward a choice that would produce a stronger consensus.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate committee that will consider Mukasey’s nomination, said as much in a press conference today. Specter called Reid’s threat more than a warning signal to the White House, saying it was a “stop, look and listen blinking red light on the train trestle.” He praised the president for “going the extra mile” in choosing Mukasey.

Specter said he hoped the nominee would be confirmed quickly, citing a Justice Department that has suffered in the wake of the controversies over the firing of U.S. attorneys and other issues that led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top agency officials. Currently, close to 10 critical positions remain to be filled at the department.

“In the history of this country, I don’t think the Justice Department has been in such disarray,” Specter said.

Mukasey, 66, was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He recently returned to private practice with a prestigious New York firm. He is best known for presiding over the terrorism trial of the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman and others in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He also handled one of the early cases involving accused terrorist Jose Padilla, who was convicted of conspiracy charges by a Miami jury last month. Mukasey ruled the government could hold Padilla indefinitely as an enemy combatant, but said he was entitled to legal counsel, essentially giving both sides something in the continuing debate over the place of civil liberties in the war on terror.

Mukasey has been vocal in his support of the USA Patriot Act. Viet Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor who was one of the authors of the act as a Justice Department official, praised Mukasey today for standing up for the controversial measure. Dinh was present at a panel in which Mukasey called concerns over the act’s intrusion on civil rights overblown. “It wasn’t just analysis,” Dinh said. “He found the courage to speak up.”

At the White House, Mukasey said protecting the country from “our fanatical enemies” was his top priority as attorney general, but said that preserving civil liberties was also an important goal.

The president also announced that Solictior General Paul Clement would no longer serve as acting attorney general during Mukasey’s confirmation process. Instead, he said that Peter Keisler, an assistant attorney general who recently announced his departure, would stay on until a successor to Gonzales is confirmed.