Dodd on Mukasey: "You must obey the law"

Earlier today Senator Dodd participated in a conference call with reporters and bloggers to talk about his opposition to Michael Mukasey's nomination for Attorney General.

Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant blogs a report on the call:

Sen. Christopher Dodd told reporters over a conference call this afternoon that Michael Mukasey should be denied confirmation as attorney general over his view that a president can justify ignoring federal law.

Mukasey's belief in "the supremacy of the executive" over federal statute is more troubling than his defense of waterboarding as an interrogation method, Dodd said, adding that an attorney general must be a reliable defender of the rule of law.

"That is about as basic as it gets," Dodd said. "You must obey the law. Everyone must."

Kagro X, writing at The Next Hurrah, discusses the same problem Senator Dodd has identified in Mukasey's view of how the Constitution applies to the President -- namely that Mukasey's contention that "the president's authority "to defend the nation" trumps his obligation to obey the law."

What Mukasey has expressed here is really a basic tenet of the Bush "administration's" view of constitutional law. Mukasey himself has expressed nothing here that puts him at odds with the policy-making elements of the "administration" with respect to executive powers, and that's something Senators need to recognize if they're going to approach this nomination, or indeed any dealings with the Bush White House at all, in any rational fashion. Ask yourselves who could convince you – and how would they do it? – that they were serious about safeguarding the basic tenets of the Constitution and its separation of powers, and at the same time keep faith with this "administration?" Any president -- and I mean any president -- ought to be able to depend on a certain amount of deference from his or her Attorney General, of course. This ordinarily goes without saying, but in this case must be said because it sets up an irreconcilable paradox. Is it even possible to serve an administration that regularly asserts constitutional interpretations like the one Judge Mukasey did and protect the fundamental rule of law which underlies our entire constitutional system of government? How could it be so?

This is the fundamental reason that Senator Dodd opposes Mukasey's nomination. Hopefully other Senators will join Dodd in voting against Mukasey. The Attorney General, as America's top law enforcement agent, needs to be someone who recognizes that the President must obey the law, just as much as every US Senator, Congressperson, corporation, or private citizen must obey the law.

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