So argues Glenn Reynolds in his new column at USA Today, and he would be correct … theoretically, anyway. The curious and difficult timing of Eric Holder’s resignation as Attorney General leaves Barack Obama in a tight spot. He needs to get a new AG confirmed in the lame-duck session of Congress, or get forced to potentially choose a nominee that will get confirmed in a Republican-controlled Senate. On the other hand, Obama will have to nominate someone before the midterm elections to get a confirmation finished in that timeframe, and picking a contentious and/or extreme candidate will make it even more difficult for Democrats to compete in Senate races over the next five weeks. Why not name a Republican to replace Holder at Justice and defuse both situations?

But maybe not. Perhaps President Obama — and, for that matter, future presidents — should take a lesson from the way we handle the Department of Defense, and apply it to the Department of Justice: Consider naming someone outside his own party as attorney general.

This frequently happens with secretaries of Defense, and it has been of benefit to the administrations that have done it. FDR picked a Republican, Henry Stimson, to be secretary of War in 1940, and that meant that the war — and the war’s casualties — became a bipartisan matter instead of fodder for partisan attacks. President Obama retained George W. Bush’s Defense secretary, Robert Gates, for most of his first term. He replaced Gates with another Republican, Chuck Hagel, in that position.

Having a Defense secretary from the other party makes war bipartisan, and reassures members of the opposition that the powers of the sword aren’t being abused. Likewise, naming an attorney general from the opposite party would tend to make the administration of justice bipartisan, and would provide considerable reassurance, as Holder’s tenure in office emphatically did not, that the powers of law enforcement were not being abused in service of partisan ends. In an age of all-encompassing criminal laws, and pervasive government spying, that’s a big deal.

Glenn has just the man for the job, too — Ted Olson, who defended same-sex marriage as well as the Bush administration as Solicitor General. Olson would sail to confirmation, although he might not get a completely easy ride from partisans on both sides of the aisle. Obama might benefit in the short run from resurrecting the “hope and change” from his 2008 campaign, which was discarded in the “I won” of February 2009 and the stimulus-bill flop. That might even change the fortunes of a couple of Senate Democrats, who at the moment have to defend themselves for being rubber stamps for Obama’s partisan and extreme agenda.

That’s rational enough to almost be convincing … almost. It leaves out one key aspect of the office of Attorney General, one that does not apply to the Pentagon. Controlling the Department of Justice means protecting one’s presidency from the proper investigation of scandals — and that is a key issue for this administration in particular. Olson’s loyalty would be to the Constitution and the office, not to Obama personally as it was for Eric Holder. Presented with the currently-known facts on the IRS targeting scandal (especially the clumsy destruction of evidence) and the deadly nature of Operation Fast and Furious, no one should doubt that Olson would pursue both with vigor. The same might be true of the NSA, although Olson might take more caution with national-security affairs.

Let’s face it — the Attorney General is basically the scandal goalie, and Obama wants to draft for defense. He may have already made his pick, Byron York reports. The rumor mill has focused on someone with personal loyalty to Obama, as well as a record of controversial decisions at Justice:

[T]here are reports the president is considering nominating Thomas Perez, who served a very controversial tenure as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division before becoming Labor Secretary in 2013.

Perez had a reputation for zealotry at the Justice Department. He turned anti-discrimination suits into payoffs for favored civil-rights groups. He meddled in legal cases for the purpose of protecting his treasured and controversial “disparate impact” theory of discrimination from being tested in court. He even investigated whether Amazon Kindle e-readers violated the Americans With Disabilities Act because they were not, in 2010, “fully accessible” to the blind.

There’s no doubt Perez alienated Republicans during his time at the Justice Department. In 2009, when he was confirmed 72-22 for the Civil Rights post, 17 Republicans voted for him. In 2013, when he left Justice to head the Labor Department, his confirmation vote was 54-46 — a strict party-line affair, with zero Republicans supporting him.

If Obama were to nominate Perez to be Attorney General, it would be the opposite of the Gates nomination: a divisive choice sure to result in a party-line vote.

That’s not the only risk for a Perez nomination. It would confirm for voters where Senate races are contested that Obama intends to continue with his string of controversial, inflammatory nominations, and force Democrats to go on record with the Perez nomination before the elections. It will be a nightmare for Democrats on the campaign trail. However, with so much at risk in the AG slot, Obama has no choice but to look for a friend who will watch his back rather than look into serious allegations of malfeasance, abuse, and corruption.

Addendum: My wife has used her Kindle for years, and finds it to be a Godsend for the blind. She has access to a much wider variety of published works than she could get at the Braille Library (as good as that has been), and the device is easy for the blind to manage after a minimum of training.