Matt Yglesias

Specter’s Fine Whine

Via Steve Benen, it seems Barack Obama hurt Arlen Specter’s feelings:

Specter said in prepared remarks Tuesday that Obama did not consult with him before choosing Eric Holder Jr. to be attorney general, and he tells Legal Times that Obama also did not consult with him or notify him before announcing four other Justice Department nominees Monday.

“History demonstrates that presidents who seek the advice of members of the Senate prior to submitting a nomination frequently see their nominees confirmed more quickly and with less controversy than those who do not,” Specter (R-Pa.) said…. “In contrast, on the nomination of Mr. Holder, President-elect Obama chose not to seek my advice or even to give me advance notice in my capacity as Ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which is his prerogative.”

Maybe Specter forgot that he’s in the minority party in the Senate and his party lost control of the White House, too. But to review, Holder’s last government appointment was as Deputy Attorney General where he served for four years. Try as conservatives might to huff and puff over him, that’s the very model of a banal choice of a well-qualified candidate. The idea of having lengthy discussions with people about whether or not a guy who was unanimously confirmed as Deputy Attorney General could be qualified to serve as Attorney General is a little silly. The Transition has a lot on its plate what with the two wars and the economic crisis.

Tom Perrelli and Intellectual Property

Thomas Perelli is going to be the next Associate Attorney General of the United States. So let’s note three things about that:

• I don’t really know what the AAG’s job is.
• I don’t know anything about Perrelli’s stint as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
• It’s very difficult to infer a lawyer’s beliefs based on work he did representing clients other than the general observation that there’s a reason lawyers in general are held in low regard by the public.

But I was interested in the fact that in his private sector capacity at Jenner & Block, Perrelli is co-chair of the Entertainment and New Media Practice. Initially, I hoped that meant he was maybe doing interesting work representing device manufacturers whose capacity to innovate is being stifled by unduly restrictive DMCA provisions. Or maybe he represented some cutting-edge artists whose work is being blocked by big content owners. But no:

Mr. Perrelli regularly represents the recording industry in cutting-edge intellectual property, technology, and anti-piracy litigation. He has represented the recording industry in a host of cases arising under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as well as in copyright infringement and digital piracy litigation. He has also represented the record industry and recording artists in a series of copyright royalty proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Board.

The good news is that since the recording industry has decided to adopt an overwhelmingly litigation-based approach to coping with technological change, rather than trying to be innovative in terms of their products or business practices, they probably put a lot of effort in making sure they’re hiring very good lawyers.

Change: But How Much

The Washington Post reports that corporate crooks are rushing to cut deals with the Bush Justice Department in order to avoid the looming Wrath of Barack. Kevin Drum remarks:

This is good news. It means that real corporations, with real money at stake, think that Obama’s unity talk isn’t worth banking on. When push comes to shove, they really do think he’s going to drive a harder bargain than the Bush administration when it comes to dealing with charges of corruption, pollution, and overcharging.

Fair enough, but “not as bad as Bush” is a pretty low bar to cross. Meanwhile, Bush has done enormous harm to the country. One could be a decent president who mostly improves things and still leave us below where we were when Bush took over in the first place. There’s never been any doubt in my mind that Obama could improve on the Bush record. But mere improvement isn’t, to coin a phrase, the change we need.

Comey Endorses Holder

The right-wing has decided that they want to make Eric Holder the Obama nominee that they give a hard time to since, apparently, they think that talking about Marc Rich will do something other than make people nostalgic for an earlier, more innocent era in the politicization of justice. Meanwhile, James Comey, who was Bush’s Deputy Attorney General for a while and who tried to prevent his colleagues in the administration from entirely shredding the constitution is endorsing Holder’s confirmation. But of course Comey and his radical rule of law views will swiftly lead to the destruction of the country.

“Reasonable Restrictions”

I’m going to hope/assume that Eric Holder has changed his mind about the vital need for internet censorship relative to where he was ten years ago at a time when a lot of folks deemed the internet impossibly scary. One useful thing about confirmation hearings, though, is that you can ask people about stuff like that.