My provincial little hometown newspaper — so willfully ignorant of times and places other than the island of Manhattan in 2007 — carries an editorial this morning attacking the rumored choice of Ted Olson for Attorney General:

OPINION | September 13, 2007
Editorial: The Next Attorney General

The NYT, like New York’s Senators, want to avoid even a nomination of Ted Olson — or any other bright, capable, Republican lawyer — and having Americans see the Democrats as obstructing a talented new Attorney General from getting on with the business of running the Justice Department. The Times, Harry Reid, and New York’s Senators want to scare the White House from nominating anyone remotely associated with the Republican Party, for . . . a cabinet position in a Republican administration. That’s a new one. Let’s remind Hillary Clinton that presidents cannot pick attorneys general who have been associated with any legal battle favored by Democrats.

Yes, it’s a shame that President Bush doesn’t have a partisan, campaign-advisor brother who he can appoint to head the department headquartered in the Robert F. Kennedy building. There are probably a large number of civil rights leaders whose phones need tapping.