Our Attorney General Designate (3 cents)

I went to law school with Michael Mukasey. I remember him. He seemed like a nice, bright fellow. I hardly (if at all) knew him. I don't know who did.

I got a call from a reporter on the Yale Daily News who was doing a story on Mukasey's background, and was looking for law school anecdotes. I had been referred to him by a classmate. I spoke to him. I told him that I remembered Mukasey, that he seemed like a nice, bright fellow, but that I hardly (if at all) knew him. And I had not seen him since law school.

He told me he had talked to 'about half a dozen' members of the class and everyone said the same thing.

I also talked to a friend who is one of the fund raisers for our 40th reunion, coming up next month. He said that he, and his two fellow co-chairs, could not even figure out who could call Mukasey to ask for money.

I have tried to figure it out. I read in a Washington Post article that Mukasey was and is an orthodox Jew, and went to an orthodox day school in New York, Ramaz. Maybe that was the clue. If he was orthodox (and not many were in those days), that would explain why he might have eaten no meals in the law school dining hall, rather than the 21 that most of us had paid for, and ate. And maybe he even went back to NYC on Friday nights (not far from New Haven) to return on Sunday, like a commuter almost. It is possible.

On the metro this morning, I ran into a friend, who had attended Ramaz, although some years after Mukasey. I told her this story. She thought it plausible.

But then she told me one of her own. She had gone to Harvard College, and lived in Leverett House. One of the other Leverett House residents at the time was now Chief Justice John Roberts. No one remembers him either.