Maximum Mike Goes to Washington

Talk about your double dippers.

For the past year, Michael Sullivan, our ambitious U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, has been moonlighting as the acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Common sense suggests that each of those critical jobs requires the round-the-clock dedication of a top professional, but never mind: As of mid-October, Sullivan is now in line to take the reins at the ATF full time. Nothing was official as of this writing, but he’s expected to skate. At his confirmation hearings, Senator John Kerry said Sullivan had “proven more than qualified and capable,” and Senator Ted Kennedy lauded his “distinguished career in public service.”

While Sullivan has amassed a solid record on civil cases, particularly against healthcare companies like Boston Scientific (a $7 million fine for anticompetitive practices), you have to wonder whether those two liberal lions—well, one liberal lion and one liberal limpet—were thinking. Because as Sullivan prepares to decamp for DC, taking with him his carefully cultivated reputation for relentlessly cracking down on street crime, he leaves in his wake a basket case of a U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judges are complaining of sloppy briefs and missed deadlines in Sullivan’s shop. Cases are taking longer to resolve than in any other state in the country. And bungling management and sometimes shocking instances of patronage have sunk morale. An estimated dozen assistant U.S. attorneys—the career professionals who do the important legal work—left the office during a recent 12-month stretch.

Given that track record, it’s fitting that Sullivan feels such warmth for Alberto Gonzales, his old boss at the ATF and U.S. Attorney’s Office, whose going-away party he marked with this dewy-eyed toast: “When I think of the attorney general, three words come to mind: discipline, duty, and honor.” That Sullivan was able to perform that boot shine without swallowing his teeth is troubling enough to those of us still residing in the reality-based community; that he’s now being called up to the big leagues is, frankly, freaking out a number of his former minions. “If anything ever happens that requires leadership at the ATF and Mike Sullivan is at the helm,” says one, “it’s going to be a sad day.”