Michael Mukasey: Republican of the New York VarietyRemember when George Bush appointed New York judge Michael Mukasey to be United States attorney general? And we kinda decided we liked him because he has amazing New York street cred? Well, he went on to lose some of his fan base because of his hard-to-understand stance on torture, specifically waterboarding. (C’mon, everybody’s doing it!) It was a big deal, because lately one’s position on torture is the Bush administration’s litmus test for attorneys general. It used to be abortion or gay marriage that made or broke someone in the eyes of the Bushies. Those days are over, it seems, as is the policy of attorneys general to shun all things gay. The Washington Post today reports that Mukasey lifted a ban, in place since the reign of Ashcroft, on the use of e-mail, bulletin boards, and easels in the Department of Justice to promote the gay group DOJ Pride. They will also be allowed to hold an annual celebration, which they have been banned from doing since 2003. Mukasey even said he’d host it in one of the DOJ’s buildings. Aw! Conservative and tolerant: We knew he was a New Yorker under it all.
Attorney General Reverses Curbs on Gay Group at Justice Department [Washington Post]
