Bill Kristol of Weekly Standard and Fox News is saying former federal judge Michael Mukasey will get the nomination to be the next Attorney General.

“I would say he’s a sort of hard — a tough-minded conservative judge who will be a strong attorney general, not a movement conservative. I don’t think he’ll get into social issues, that sort of thing. Those Bush policies are already in place,” Kristol said.

“I think the best thing about him, from a conservative point of view, is he will be an extremely effective witness before Congress when FISA, the eavesdropping program, comes up for reauthorization, as it will in a few months. On all War on Terror issues, he will be to War on Terror issues what (Gen. David) Petraeus is, I think, to military issues, an independent, well-respected person who’s pretty much in agreement with the president’s policies,” he continued.

Asked about the nomination, Sen. Joe Biden, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he doesn’t know anything about the judge, but he will have to pass a Democratic test before being confirmed.

“As long as he can prove — not prove, assert, and I believe that he understands he’s not just the president’s lawyer but the country’s lawyer, I could support him. But I don’t know enough about him, so he has to pass that test for me, go through that filter. Is he going to be the president’s guy? Is he going to — or is he going to stand up and defend the Constitution and be the people’s lawyer as well? And I just don’t know the answer to that,” Biden said on “FOX News Sunday.”

Mukasey already has earned support from liberal Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a point that Kristol noted has turned off some conservatives. But he said Republican senators will come out in force for him.

“I think every Republican will vote to confirm him. It’s unfortunate that Chuck Schumer respects him, but you can’t do that much about some people saying nice things about you. He is widely respected on both sides of the aisle,” said Kristol, whose article noted that Schumer and the liberal “Alliance for Justice” supported Mukasey only after it became clear that Mukasey was not going to be on the short list of possible Supreme Court nominees.

Kristol and others have noted that many conservatives support former Solicitor General Ted Olson, a tried and true GOP ally, as the next attorney general, but it may be better to avoid a fight in the last 15 months of the administration when an equally good candidate can be picked without an argument.

Mukasey is the judge who appointed a lawyer to Jose Padilla, the man arrested for trying to detonate a dirty bomb.

Supposedly the announcement will come as early as Monday. We’ll see if Kristol is right.