I also agree that the next most important task is to rebuild a badly damaged institution. Sadly, that’s true across the whole federal government, from Martin’s FCC to Doan’s GSA. That makes prior management and political experience essential. Bush’s “unlearning on the job” won’t cut it.

Neither HRC nor Edwards has that background; neither would be a good choice for AG. I like your suggestions for AG They also reward a new, talented generation of players that ought to have national responsibilities.

Edwards would be good at HHS, giving it the lead in implementing the strategy to overhaul how Americans gain access to the healthcare, not just pothole-filled health insurance, that the rest of the world considers a basic civil right.

I think Obama has the self-confidence to fill his Cabinet with such people. That would give him and us a team of highly competitive players, each doing an different but essential task. Bush has prized only those who report back to Karl before zipping up their trousers or skirts. A good way to run a PR campaign, maybe, but a lousy way to run the world’s most complex and once powerful government.

And I don’t do what I see replete at FDL aka the “mother ship” where people just sling mud. I butress my arguments with fact.

There are hundreds of men and women that should be considered for AG, and all the jobs that require confirmation at DOJ, OLC and the many divisions of DOJ, and all the jobs that don’t.

The only way to go at Main Justice and with respect to several current US Attorneys like Christopher J. Christie, the hack USA in New Jersey, is up.

Prosecutions like that of Siegelman and many others were clearly politically engineered. We have a reprehensible situation where people are now being held and denied legal representation or anything that is a pale shadow of it, and attorneys contacts with their clients are now being wire tapped with no legal basis for doing so and local attorneys I know with many years of high quality experience are saying the same thing. They have sought to volunteer to represent Gitmo and other defendants who are not terrorists but are being painted as terrorists because this administration badly needs scalps and this has been the subject of some of EW’s threads, and will probably be the subject of future ones as well as some of Christy’s.

These attorneys have already launched litigation over this reprehensible situation.

I have simply found fault with her 3 card monte–you’ve seen the game–played over her experience and qualifications. She went after Obama visciously and if Obama had not been the candidate and she had gone after someone else in the same way, male or female, white or black, muslim or Christian or Jew or any ethnicity or “color” whatever the hell color and religion have to do with this. Race has been injected into this primary in an egregious way in a country that is very racist with ignorant voters like many in West Virginia and Indiana that were featured all over TV during the last two weeks, and religion has absolutely no place in the government of the U.S. or campaigns to run help run it.

And I agree with your AG assessment and I can think of hundreds of qualified people for many of the important criminal and civil division jobs at DOJ including AG, and so can you, and you and I know she has no serious qualifications for the federal bench. Politically having her anywhere in this coming administration is a terrible idea.

I would add that all the people hyperventilating about 527 attacks on Michelle Obama’s grocery list, have not seen Obama get tough on McCain and Bush although some of that began this morning but you will see it in spades.

I don’t disagree with anything you say about the AG job and think Janet would be a great fit, but I just think having her in the Senate for the next umpteen years would be even better for AZ and for the Nation.

While there is no requirement to be an attorney on the Supreme Court, no one is going to ever be there who isn’t nor should they. The requirements that should be necessary for a job on the court are for someone to be an outstanding federal litigator and/or a constitutional scholar. That they haven’t always been met, is no reason for them not to be.

Bmaz’s point as to age of any Democratic President’s nominee to the S.Ct. is a very crucial, correct, and important one, particularly in the light of the relative youth and good health of Alito and Roberts.

I agree on AG, and I also have always maintained that Judge Mukasey was a piss poor and damaging choice for AG and we will begin to learn some of the implications of what he is doing many years in the future.