When the president nominated former New York district judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, conservatives responded with one of three reactions: there were the rank-and-file Republicans who said, "Michael who?"; there were the Bill Kristols of the world who followed the White House's lead; and there were the activists who wanted Ted Olson and found Mukasey to be a poor substitute.

Bob Novak, summarizing the feelings of many conservative leaders, blasted Mukasey as "totally unqualified," preferring Olson because he "knows where the bodies are buried."

The New York Times' Adam Liptak had a good feature piece today on Mukasey and his 18 years on the federal bench, which probably won't help smooth over conservative discontent. Liptak describes the AG nominee as "fiercely intelligent, prickly, impatient, practical and suspicious of abstractions" -- hardly qualities found in "loyal Bushies."

He was quick to chastise and impose sanctions on lawyers who tested his patience or, much worse, lied to him. He did not hesitate to rule against the powerful, including President Bush's uncle, or people with sympathetic cases but no claim to legal relief. His decisions often crackled with an acerbic and sometimes aphoristic wit.

He was tough at sentencing but not uniformly so. He showed leniency to people convicted of immigration offenses but little mercy to white collar criminals.

In one notable example, Justice Department officials asked Mukasey to allow them to force a mentally troubled defendant to take psychotropic drugs to render her competent to stand trial. Mukasey not only rejected the request, but seemed offended by it.

"It is not inappropriate to recall in plain terms," he wrote, "what the government seeks to do here, which necessarily involves physically restraining defendant so that she can be injected with mind-altering drugs."

"There was a time when what might be viewed as an even lesser invasion of a defendant's person -- pumping his stomach to retrieve evidence -- was said to 'shock the conscience' and invite comparison with 'the rack and the screw,' " he added, quoting from a 1952 Supreme Court decision.

Where have you gone, Alberto Gonzales, a conservative movement turns its lonely eyes to you.