George Bush is often described by his opponents as the dumbest human on the planet.

But, once again, the President is in the process of proving himself the dumbest human on the planet--except for Democratic Party leadership and the New York Times.

In the drama to replace the sufficiently scorched Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the President signaled that he might elevate Ted Olson, former solicitor general and counsel of record for the Supreme Court case that ended the election of 2000, Bush v. Gore.

Oh, the howls that nomination was set to elicit. Democrats were sharpening the long knives, painting their faces for ritualized torture, and preparing for a long and painful non-confirmation hearing.

But, then, out of nowhere, the imbecile president emerged on Constitution Day to nominate straight arrow, non-friend, non-politician, experienced, competent, and all-around nice guy, Michael Mukasey.

Who?

From this Washington Post article: Mukasey is an Orthodox Jew from the Bronx, and the son of a coin laundry operator. Mukasey graduated from Columbia and then Yale Law School during the 1960s, practiced law for 20 years in New York, met and befriended Rudy Giuliani, and accumulated an 18-year brilliantly conservative record at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Is he conservative enough?

I love this quote from the Post attributed to Mukasey: Civil libertarians who criticized the detention campaign as an unprecedented or unauthorized use of federal powers were spreading "breathless half-truths and outright falsehoods."

Notwithstanding, Mukasey's record and endorsements are so stellar and unimpeachable that he keeps appearing on New York Senator Chuck Schumer's list of acceptable Republican nominees for various top legal posts.

The rub?

Somebody forgot to tell Patrick Leahy and the New York Times.

The senior senator from Vermont, chair of the Judiciary Committee, is threatening to block the President's nomination until he is allowed to extract a pound of flesh off the acrid political corpse of the former Attorney General.

As for the New York Times, they find the nominee "troubling." Evidently, quotes like the one above give the editorial board at the NYT great pause, calling him "too deferential to the government" and finding him not nearly obsequious enough to the American Library Association in their courageous mission to save unsuspecting readers from an inchoate police state.

So, the President now occupies the enviable position of presenting a nominee every one in the legal universe seems to admire personally and professionally (even the proudly liberal, Chuck Schumer), while a cranky but powerful senate Democrat and the unofficial party organ of the DNC attempt to head him off at the pass.

Bring it on.