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 He has reopened an inquiry into the government's warrantless wiretapping program that had been shut down by the administration. And by picking a Chicago judge to be his top deputy, Mukasey gained some support from one of his harshest Senate critics.
Suddenly, the urgency of passing contempt citations against President Bush's confidants has waned. Even those who voted against Mukasey could be heard speaking of blank slates and good news so far.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who presided over the confirmation hearings but ultimately voted no, said he personally wished Mukasey well.
"When I talked to him, I said I started a new clock running and I want him to be as successful as possible," Leahy, D-Vt., told reporters on Friday.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., also voted against confirmation but nonetheless sent Mukasey a note of congratulations.
"We'll just have to wait and see," Whitehouse said.
One of Mukasey's first acts was widely received as a gesture of his promised independence from the White House. Five days after taking office, he announced that he was reopening the department's internal inquiry into whether the spying program complies with the law. The Office of Professional Responsibility was shut down last year after the investigators were denied security clearances. Gonzales told Congress that Bush, not he, denied the clearances.
"I am happily surprised," declared Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.
"Very healthy," proclaimed Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who voted to confirm Mukasey but remained concerned about some issues.
Next up: Mukasey and the White House tapped a federal judge from Chicago to be deputy attorney general.
On paper, Mark Filip is a natural match for Mukasey. The two are former federal judges and loyal Republicans. But there apparently was another reason behind the nomination: One of Filip's fans on Capitol Hill also is Mukasey's harshest Senate critic.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who issued no statement when Mukasey was confirmed, suddenly waxed effusive at news that Filip would be the attorney general's deputy.
"Mark Filip has earned an excellent reputation as a district court judge," Durbin said in a statement that did not mention Mukasey's name. Durbin, D-Ill., noted that a Chicago legal association gave Filip "top ratings for his temperament, independence and legal ability."
There are other signs that Mukasey's confirmation has dialed down the intensity of some hardball tactics and take-it-or-leave-it standoffs between Congress and the Bush administration.
One threatened to lead to a constitutional showdown in federal court over the refusal of several Bush confidants to obey congressional subpoenas on the wiretapping program and Justice Department's purge of nine federal prosecutors.
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 The House Judiciary Committee approved a citation against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential legal counselor Harriet Miers. And Leahy could, at any time, hold a committee vote to advance another citation against Karl Rove, formerly Bush's top political adviser and the architect of his rise to the White House. All three presidential counselors ignored their subpoenas under executive privilege.
Mukasey has not said definitively whether he would allow any contempt citations to be prosecuted.
There is evidence that even on that bitterly fought standoff, the sense of urgency has waned. Democrats in the House, who first predicted a contempt vote by the full chamber would happen in September, then postponed it until October, then to November. Now, House Democratic leaders are acknowledging that the measure may not be able to garner a majority or ever see House action.
"When and if that comes to the floor, I would hope we'd have the votes for it," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters this week.
In the Senate, it's been months since Leahy has threatened to try to advance the Rove citation.
Mukasey's very nomination quieted the Senate committee's most prolific administration critic: Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who led the panel's investigation into the prosecutor firings and uncovered other possible Justice Department wrongdoing. When Gonzales finally resigned in September, Schumer suggested to the White House that Bush replace him with Mukasey, a fellow New Yorker.
The coast isn't entirely clear for the new attorney general. Republicans have joined Democrats in urging him to declare waterboarding of terrorism suspects to be torture
-- a designation that, like restarting the internal probe into eavesdropping, could directly contradict Bush.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Mukasey's promise to quit if Bush does not follow his advice is encouraging in theory.
"Rarely in the kind of life that he's going to live do these things present themselves in ultimate black-and-white, do-or-die moments," Whitehouse, a former federal prosecutor, said. "A lot of it is going to be what side of the gray area he's going to lean toward."
Specter said in an interview that the new attorney general has, in public and private, given even his critics reason for better relations with Justice for the last year of Bush's presidency.
Among Specter's expectations was that Mukasey would give a "fair hearing" to a bill to shield reporters from being forced by prosecutors to reveal their sources.
"We're in for a clean slate," Specter said.
[Associated
Press; By LAURIE KELLMAN]
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