Who is Paul Clement?
The new, acting attorney general of the United States is not one you might know, but for the next 210 days (maximum), or until Bush successfully appoints a permanent replacement, he's going to be filling Gonzo's shoes. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Clement is one of the few in a long line of Bushiticians to actually win support on both sides of the aisle. Pedigreed in all the right ways, Clement went to public school in Wisconsin and made his way through Georgetown, Cambridge and eventually Harvard law; with fabulous grades and a near-sterling reputation.
That's one that has followed him to this day. As TPM reports, a 2004 Legal Times article demonstrated the respect of those he's won over on the left, despite the fact that he, personally, is a conservative. At his Senate confirmation hearing in 2005, when he was appointed to be solicitor general, Russ Feingold, D-Wis., praised his legal work as "superb" and offered that his "professionalism and integrity" were vouchsafe — even on issues where the two disagreed.
Former acting solicitor general and practicing attorney Walter Dellinger agrees. "Whenever I think of an argument from Paul, one word that springs to mind is clarity," Dellinger said. "He has extremely precise and clear intellect. Paul is never murky in thought or expression."
And that's true for the positions he's argued thus far — including the idea that the administration can hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants without promise of trial. He might be big on executive power and broad war-time powers, but Clement says of his legal work so far, "If you've got a statute to defend, it doesn't much matter how you would have voted on the statute if you were a Congressman," he told Legal Times. "Your job is to marshal the best argument for the defense of the statute or the policy that gets the job done."
And for the next few weeks, Clement will be doing just that for Bush and co. And for the first time in years, Washington's legal reporters will be bored. They'll no longer have murky declarations and nebulous legal objections to work through. At least not until the next appointee. Is this the end of Texasopoloy?
Many rumored the permanent replacement will be Chertoff, but conservative Human Events offers Fran Fragos Townsend as a second choice. Not a bad idea, given how hard Chertoff will be to push through Congress after the heckuva-good-job with Katrina. But therein lies the heart of the new problem: How will Bush get anyone through Congress? The Dems will bring up that person's (legitimate) failings, the Republicans will say stop whining, and Capitol Mayhem will ensue as it always does when W walks up to the Hill.
As reader Amanda Phelps commented on this site earlier, now the Republicans have a perfect, pre-election opportunity to point their fingers at the Democrats, wiggle them, and say, see, they won't approve him or her, they just want to argue; they don't get anything done.
Because that looks just great to voters.
