Griffin Bell Dies

I guess it was no surprise when the news was reported today that former Attorney General Griffin Bell, 90, has passed away.

Bell served in President Carter's Cabinet as the nation's 72nd attorney general from 1977 to 1979. At the time he was nominated for the post, there was some controversy because of his Southern roots and the fact that he was a close friend of the president.

I always felt the controversy was unwarranted. Bobby Kennedy, after all, was the brother of the president who chose him to be attorney general — and he served with distinction.

And I guess I felt the criticism of Bell more keenly because I, too, grew up in the South — and Carter, as the first president from the Deep South since the Civil War, was often criticized by non-Southerners, even when such criticism was undeserved.

As it was in the case of Bell, who also served with distinction and left having restored respect to the office of the nation's highest-ranking law enforcement officer — a much-needed change after the tenure of John Mitchell.

Unfortunately, the job was held for many years by Ed Meese, who was involved in the Iran-Contra affair under Ronald Reagan, then by John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales under George W. Bush.

Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, is seen as an unsavory nominee by some for his role in expediting President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich just before Clinton left office in 2001.

To his credit, however, Holder has expressed regret over the manner in which he handled Rich's pardon, and his legal career has been mostly dignified and responsible.

Hopefully, he will bring integrity back to the office of attorney general — the way Griffin Bell left it 30 years ago.

Former Texas AG Dies

If you lived in Texas for almost any length of time in the 1970s, 1980s and/or 1990s, you surely remember former Attorney General Jim Mattox.

He died in his sleep on Thursday at the age of 65. I've heard no details on the cause of his death.

He was, unabashedly, a liberal Democrat in a state where sightings of the species are few and far between.

In 1990, he lost a colorful yet bitter battle for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to Ann Richards, less than two years after her phenomenally well-received keynote address to the 1988 national convention.

It was truly a clash of the titans in Texas Democratic politics. And, in hindsight, perhaps it was an omen of things to come — like the battles one often sees in nature when the two most powerful members of a dying breed lock horns in an epic fight for temporary supremacy.

Ten years ago, Mattox lost his last bid for elected office. He sought the office he once held — state attorney general — losing to Republican John Cornyn.

As fate would have it, Cornyn was just re-elected to the U.S. Senate a couple of weeks ago.

With Mattox's passing, it now appears that the last of the old guard among Texas Democrats has faded into history. If the party is to become competitive on a statewide basis, it will have to do so with a new generation of leaders.

The Best You're Gonna Get

Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for attorney general, is far from perfect.

And there are many people out there who are more qualified, more experienced and possess better legal minds.

But Mukasey is, in the words of Sen. Charles Schumer, "far better than anyone could expect from this administration." Or, in Sen. Dianne Feinstein's blunt observation, Mukasey is "not Alberto Gonzales." And that has a lot going for it.

This president has about 14 months left in office. And when you consider the people who have occupied the attorney general's office during Bush's tenure, Mukasey truly is as good as it gets.

If Mukasey is turned back, Bush will simply nominate someone more objectionable to Democrats.

So I would recommend to the Democrats in the Senate that, whatever their misgivings over Mukasey may be -- and there are plenty of misgivings to have -- it's best to avoid a showdown with Bush over this.

Let him have this choice for attorney general, live with the aspects with which you're uncomfortable and save your fights for the more important, longer lasting matters.

In a little over a year, Bush will be on his way back to Texas, and someone else will be preparing to move in to the White House. But policy decisions will have ramifications that can -- and probably will -- carry over into the next president's administration.

Learn from Bush's mistake. He squandered his "political capital" and had nothing left when a real crisis (Hurricane Katrina) came along.

It's essential that the Democrats in Congress hold on to whatever "capital" they still have -- in case a Supreme Court opening comes up or SCHIP is voted on again or something like that.

Drawing a line in the dirt over this will only make it more difficult to accomplish anything of substance between now and the next election.

In the last 14 months of a president's administration, you have to control the agenda or it will control you.