Michael Mukasey, CC ’63 and President Bush's likely nominee to succeed Alberto Gonzales as United States Attorney General, served as Spectator's editorial page editor from March of 1962 to March of 1963. Though over 40 years old, Mukasey's writings from the time—as well as unsigned editorials published by the board he presided over—may offer some insight into his early legal and political inclinations. Below are excerpts from several pieces authored by or published under the editorial direction of Mukasey.

"Withdrawal from NDEA—Pro" (October 29, 1962), one half of a point/counterpoint regarding the National Defense Education Act signed by Mukasey and two other authors:

"This newspaper has said before that applying the McCarran Act in an academic situation creates a dangerous precedent; that the provisions of the McCarran act defining what constitutes a communist organization or membership in one are frighteningly vague; that applying for a loan is irrelevant to subversion and should not be criminal for subversives and innocent for others; that it is foolish to deny funds to communists and not to fascists; that it is insulting and discriminatory to require students to submit a list of their crimes when such information is not required of other beneficiaries of government largesse; that a grant of absolute power to the Commissioner [of Education] is not in keeping with the government's own standard of due process; and that the necessity for a student to anticipate what might be construed as opposing the national interest can only stifle free expression."

"St. John's and the Law" (March 14, 1963), a staff editorial published under Mukasey which supported a court decision upholding St. John's right to expel several students for participating in a civil—rather than a Catholic—wedding ceremony:

"We believe that the governing moral system in an academic institution should be academic ethics, not religious dogma... [but] attendance at a university, so widely hailed as a right, is actually a privilege, and one that must depend largely on the rules established by those who control the university."

"Abortion and the Law" (March 14, 1963), a staff editorial published under Mukasey which supported the conclusions of Dr. Robert E. Hall, a Columbia physician who published an article calling for the decriminalization of abortion:

"He [Dr. Robert E. Hall] suggests that the matter be taken out of the hands of theologians, out of the hands of lawyers, even out of the hands of doctors, and that it be entrusted to the only people who can possibly determine whether the child is wanted: the parents.

This is strong medicine, and by urging it Dr. Hall has left himself open to the vilest of charges: that he is amoral, that he is heretical, that he is no better than Hitler. These accusations hardly bear consideration. The doctor is intensely moral; he leaves religion where it belongs, in the conscience of the individual; he takes for granted the difference between abortion and mass murder."

"School Prayer & the Court" (October 16, 1962), a staff editorial published under Mukasey which rejected the argument that legal support for school prayer could be found in the text of the U.S. Constitution:

"Many supporters of prayer in the schools have argued that the founding fathers were religious men and would have approved of prayer in the schools, and that this country has achieved eminence partly because of its religious values.

These arguments are not only debatable, they are irrelevant. It is not what the founding fathers thought or believed that is the law of the land; it is what they wrote in the Constitution. Posthumous mind-reading may be fun in the parlor, but it has no place in the court."