An alternative view is his personality used to be what you want (in theory) as both AG and SCOTUS justice - slow, deliberate, non-partisan.

There's slow, and then there's taking more than four years to prosecute high-profile crimes committed in plain view.

I agree; but different times called for different measures. There was also too much of a feeling of "whew, that was close, but now we can get back to normal" instead of "let's make sure that never happens again".