Should we be worried that Ken Starr is pushing for OLC nom Dawn Johnsen's confirmation?

[HopeOverFear]

(You know, folks, maybe one of the reasons why Obama has appeared to "agree" with Bush on states secrets and stuff like that is because HE STILL DOES NOT HAVE HIS ENTIRE TEAM IN PLACE. Obama nominated Dawn Johnsen (a vocal opponent to Bush) to head the Office Legal Counsel two months ago and Senate Republicans are still dragging their asses to confirm her. Just sayin'...)


This weekend two prominent conservatives added their voices to the calls to confirm Dawn Johnsen and Harold Koh. Douglas Kmiec and Kenneth Starr have come out in unequivocal support for Johnsen and Koh respectively.

Kmiec has long been a leading conservative legal scholar; he currently holds the Caruso Family Chair at Pepperdine University School of Law. He also held the same job to which Dawn Johnsen has been nominated: assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. He served that office under both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. So, as a former head of the OLC, he certainly understands the background and qualifications needed to handle the job. As he said in his endorsement of Johnsen in today's Legal Times, he recognizes that she is eminently qualified to take the helm at the OLC:

Dawn Johnsen's nomination to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel is caught up in an unjustified effort to hand President Barack Obama his first major loss. Some Senate Republicans seek to filibuster Johnsen into effective defeat. This would be a mistake... Her history demonstrates that Johnsen can and will separate law from politics and discharge the OLC's unique duty to assess the constitutionality and legality of executive initiative and legislative proposal. Even if the president did not also deserve the Senate's deference on the choice of his executive team, Dawn Johnsen merits confirmation.

(snip...) Starr and Kmiec were able to put politics aside and recognize how extraordinarily qualified both Koh and Johnsen are for the posts to which they are nominated. It is time for Senate Republicans to do the same. When Congress reconvenes next week the Senate should move to confirm these two exceptional individuals without delay.

[Adelante]

1. It might be helpful, actually

Give some of the more reasonable no-sayers pause before automatically voting against confirming them.

[Thrill]

2. No we shouldn't. He's just standing up for them now. So he can be a pain in the ass when its time

to pick Supreme Court Justices.

[Uzybone]

3. No we shouldn't

Starr and even Ted Olson want Koh confrimed. The old saying about a broken clock being right 2ce a day....



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/the-fight-over-the-harold-koh-nomination-a-field-guide/


Rebuttal: Andy McCarthy in National Review said that vouching for Koh’s scholarship and integrity was not the point:

This is an argument about policy, not personality, honesty, or qualifications. The mainstream media did not vet President Obama. His transnational progressive positions were not scrutinized — and even though the president is even now on an important trip, crafting new global regulatory arrangements with other heads of state, we still have not gotten anything approximating an examination of Obama’s views. Bluntly, the public has been better informed about Gov. Sarah Palin’s handling of the Alaska State Police than about their President’s fondness for international redistribution of wealth, international treaties, and the transfer of national sovereignty to transnational bureaucracies and tribunals.
Crossover Endorsement II: In a speech at Yale last week, Clinton nemesis and Pepperdine law dean Kenneth Starr said the Senate should confirm Koh.