« Obstruction or Simple Corruption? | Main | Note To Reader: Sex/Meat Double Entendre Of Your Choosing Goes Here. »

March 1, 2007

The Republican Phoenix - Michael Chertoff?

E
ric's former boss in the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office was Michael Chertoff, the current head of the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Chertoff, who frequently sparked questions about his longterm ambitions after he left his New Jersey post, looked like a political dynamo for a time. Would he run for governor? Would he be the Attorney General if a GOP president won in 2000? Would he be nominated for the Supreme Court? What would he do?

He didn't run for governor. Bush didn't make him A.G, only Assistant A.G. for the Criminal Division. He's not yet made the Supreme, but Bush did put on the 3rd Circuit -- making him judicially experienced for a SCOTUS job.

But after Katrina, it looked like Chertoff couldn't make dog catcher in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Then a funny thing happened. His former boss, Rudy Guiliani, decided to run for president and is leading the Republican field.

So Chertoff could be back in the game -- for Attorney General or the Supreme Court.

Interestingly, while Chertoff considers himself a legal conservative, he's not of the same stripe as another of his former bosses, Samuel Alito. It was Chertoff who wrote the 3rd Circuit opinion rejecting the government's position that a strip search of the wife and child of an alleged drug dealer, nowhere mentioned in the four corners of a warrant to search their home, violated the 4th Amendment. Then-Judge Alito, who was on the same panel, disagreed.

Chertoff's nothing if not a Phoenix.

Posted by shertaugh at March 1, 2007 6:29 AM

Comments

For someone who is apparently educated and intelligent, I find it amazing how monochromatic your thinking is. I assume that you are serious when you post here... but doesn't it disturb you in the least that every single one of your political opinions is predicated on the shaky notion that everything a Republican does is wrong/malevolent/selfish/venal/stupid/etc? Don't you see how simple-minded and inadequate an explanation that is for political and world events?

Forgive me, but it is just bizarre to see someone who's entire world view is so infused with hatred toward people that they have never met. I am writing this because I find people like you downright scary. You are obviously educated and have "been around" a bit, so how did this happen to you? I mean, how does someone like you sustain this Manichaean fury? Especially when you see no confirmation of it in your day-to-day life? (I mean by that your actual experiences, not the imagined world you "glimpse" through the portals of the Internet or mass media.) In reality, you don't know anything about the unspoken motives of the people that you write about here. You just assume you do. You pull it out of yourself. So, I ask you-- is it really them? Or is it you?

Alternatively-- why is it necessary that people who disagree with you be evil, and not just a source of honest disagreement?

[Shertaugh: I'm not sure how complimenting Chertoff's resiliency, and recognizing his close connection to Rudy Guiliani, is a sign of a "Manichaean fury."]

Posted by: Sigmund at March 1, 2007 11:09 AM