24 Comments

1. Derek:

None of the accusations even approach politicization of the AG’s office. Recommendation or not, pardoning is the executive’s power alone. You can’t call a recommendation a “politicized” move unless Holder was planning to run for office.

The game here is to try to establish some sort of link between the messiness of the clinton years and Obama. It’s something I find stupid in light of clinton getting 2 terms and al gore winning the popular vote even after this alleged shameful presidency of Clinton.

Time for a new game.

Jan 17, 2009 - 2:13 am 2. Bender:

Hatch – useless
Grassley – useless
Specter – useless
Martinez – useless

When oh when are these dinosaurs going to go the hell away?

Jan 17, 2009 - 4:01 am 3. J.J. Sefton:

Pardoning the FALN terrorists gave Hilary Clinton the Puerto Rican vote. I believe he also pardoned a couple of unrepentant Weatherman who committed murder and armed robbery to fund their attempts to overthrow the US. Marc RIch and his wife were big-time Clinton contributors. Holder and Reno stonewalled what would have been an investigation into Gore’s shady political dealings.

Yeah. Totally not political. Nothing to see here, folks. RINO’s may grasp ankles firmly. Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.

Jan 17, 2009 - 5:39 am 4. J.J. Sefton:

….Weatherman who were closely tied to Ayers and Dohrn….. (crickets still chirping.)

Jan 17, 2009 - 5:41 am 5. SaraforAmerica:

I just want to say that I’ve been working very hard to be optimistic. I’m really really trying but now, I just want to cry.

If we can’t stop any of Obama’s nominations, even with all the doo-doo in their past, we have no hope to stop the juggernaut that is building.

Sigh.

Jan 17, 2009 - 6:19 am 6. Kathy L.:

Remember when John Ashcroft was President Bush’s nominee for Attorney General. He was raked over the coals in his confirmation hearings, for no reason at all. It was awful what he went through. Sen. Teddy Chappaquidick Kennedy was the worst attack dog. It was revolting what they put Atty Gen Ashcroft (an honorable man) through, with no cause whatsoever. Now this guy Holder has so many things against him, and he seems to be getting a pass. Remember he is one who was responsible or instrumental in making it impossible for the CIA and FBI to exchange/share information prior to 9/11, thereby contributing greatly to the worst calamity to befall our country. Then Pres Bush came to office and got blamed for 9/11, and Pres. Bush rebuilt our intelligence capabilities from scratch, and has kept us safe since then. There is no way Eric Holder should be attorney general. People are in a rush to put people into office because of their color, including Obama. I think the most qualified people, dedicated Americans, who love our country should have these positions, not just because they are one color or another. Republican Senators: get some backbone. This is our country we are talking about. The damage Holder can do in office is substantial. He is a terrorist sympathizer and so is Obama.

Jan 17, 2009 - 6:30 am 7. Spinoneone:

EVERY US Attorney is a political appointee, as is EVERY US Marshall. They ALL serve at the “pleasure of the President.” ALL Attorneys General, all of the Deputy AGs, and most of the Assistant AGs are political appointees. The career guys, up to the Senior Executive Service cadre, which is not a lot of people at DOJ, are the top of the career ladder. So, anyone who doesn’t believe that the President or the AG cannot fire ANY US Attorney at ANY time for ANY reason just hasn’t paid attention to the facts of life for a political appointee. And, if you believe the the Obama administration will not continue this tradition, please, enjoy your newest bag of BC sinsemilla.

Jan 17, 2009 - 6:33 am 8. HardHeadedWoman:

Sharp questioning? Hardly. This miserable excuse for a human being is going to be confirmed with hardly a murmur from Republicans. John McCain will probably be in transports of delight.

Jan 17, 2009 - 6:34 am 9. Sassenach:

When I turned on the hearing yesterday, all I saw was some weird discussion about Holder’s basketball abilities.

These hearings are a complete sham. This is hope and change?

Jan 17, 2009 - 6:40 am 10. Wahine:

America’s future is doomed if no one will stand for what is right. And now is the time.

Just as all the blatant fraud and corruption was allowed – not a peep! – during the campaign, it is now no surprise Republicans are allowing the serial liar to populate his cabinet with others of like kind.

Hearing a number of times yesterday that BO needs the “trust” of Americans in order pass his stimulus bill, I shook my head. It’s beyond me how any American can trust that man. But we are that foolish. That much is certain.

Say “goodbye” to a once great nation.

Jan 17, 2009 - 8:11 am 11. Ed Lilly:

“…But at the hearing it soon became evident that the Republicans did not have the stomach for a full-blown fight.”

Yeah, who could have predicted the *#&*&^ Republicans in the Senate wouldn’t have the, uh, stomach for a full-blown fight? They’ve done such an incredible job of making the case for principled conservatism for the past 25 years, it’s really shocking they failed to come through here.

Sheesh.

Jan 17, 2009 - 8:42 am 12. RE:

Facts no longer seem to matter. It’s very difficult to understand how it is that Americans have voted to have such obvious dysfunction play an even larger role in their lives. But they have and consequently will get what they deserve.

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. I look for evidence to the contrary, but find none.

Jan 17, 2009 - 9:10 am 13. 11B40:

Greetings:

Someone should ask AG-designate Holder if he ever read Conrad’s “Lord Jim.”

Jan 17, 2009 - 10:48 am 14. John personal trainer Austin:

Holder warning Specter not to question his integrity. That is laughable. I suppose Eric wil sic the mdeia on Arlen.

Jan 17, 2009 - 11:40 am 15. Ann141:

Absolute Clintonesque classic: “Because I screwed up really, really bad, I am even more qualified for this new, greater position of responsibility.”

These people make me gag.

Slop. Crud. Decay. Filth. Crooked. Liars. Frauds. Criminals.

The mafia should be taking lessons from this whole crew; maybe they can recover some of their street power.

Jan 17, 2009 - 12:13 pm 16. Wahine:

Wanna throw up? Go to Ace of Spades

acedotmudotnu

and read this: “Obama is Mulling His Own FEMA”

We’re screwed.

Jan 17, 2009 - 1:34 pm 17. RW:

I caught the part with Specter being threatened by Holder as well. You would thing the chairs were reversed. It was like Holder was daring Specter to come back at him. He didn’t.

The great Hon. Jeff Sessions did his job and one other Senator late. But the tone of the hearing I caught was fait accompli.

Like we have to give this guy a pass even though he worked to pardon FALN terrorists, Marc Rich and used a local judge’s order to take a kid at gunpoint away from his family on Easter Weekend.

And he later denied that any gun was pointed or present when the Elian was taken. He later found out that was wrong.

Eric Holder does have that marvelous quality to obfuscate on issues and make himself innocent. Maybe that’s the quality we need with an AG.

This is too much for me to stomach. And his comments before and during the hearing on the state’s legal rights on the 2nd amendment were none too impressive either.

More obfuscation. Followed by confiscation.

Jan 17, 2009 - 2:34 pm 18. cedarford:

Kathy L. – There is no way Eric Holder should be attorney general. People are in a rush to put people into office because of their color, including Obama.

Eric Holder is qualified. He effectively ran Justice in the last 4 years of the Clinton Administration as Clinton had nothing but cotempt for the incompetent, palsied Reno. I didn’t like many of his actions, but he is no Reno or Alberto Gonzalez. I was very happy when he backed the Heller decision and said he would not try end-arounding “well-established law of the land”. The pardons? Bill & Hillary’s ideas. And something the Constitution gives the President the explicit authority to do. Holder was the foot soldier that saluted and said “Yessir!”. The pardons are not revokable, are 8 years old, and plenty of opportunity existed to “get” Hillary as she ran and won two Senate elections, then ran for President and almost won, but Republicans (and Democrats) failed to make a good case that the pardons being a big transgression.
My advice, water under the bridge. Screaming about ancient Scandal! will only burn Right-Wingers further and damage Republicans for focusing on the trivial.
The country has far more important things to do now, horrific Bush messes to clean up, to suffer a fringe band of Republican idiots still going on about Bill’s wayward penis, pardons, and “Travelgate”.

As for Obama, with 75% approval and time to reflect on how badly McCain showed himself as a candidate…Obama being black had nothing to do with his election. He was clearly the best Democratic candidate who outfought, out thought, out organized, and out financed his rivals. And against the treacherous, old, sometimes incoherent and erratic McCain, he was the better nominee.
I think it would have been a lot closer a call if Romney had not been torpedo’d by the Fundies, if Fred had any fire in his lazy belly, if a few Rep Governors had more seasoning and more distance from Bush II, DeLay to run – perhaps if Jeb Bush had a different last name, or if Obama had ran against different people in a different year. His lack of experience might have doomed him. But he did not. He ran against weak Dem rivals, one that had a bastard child a-comin’, and one with so much baggage she should have campaigned with a locomotive needed to haul it around behind her.
But he did not. He was the best candidate and the one that best showed he had judgment and leadership attributes and ability to do an effective campaign.

RW – Like we have to give this guy a pass even though he worked to pardon FALN terrorists, Marc Rich and used a local judge’s order to take a kid at gunpoint away from his family on Easter Weekend.

AS mentioned, Holder was the foot soldier executing Presidential powers Clinton was determined to exercise. No different than Robert Bork agreeing to execute Nixons legally valid command to fire Archibald Cox.
As for the Elian Gonzalez affair, it was one of Bill Clinton’s finest acts of political courage. Whenever you go down a path where a country has crazies that claim their ideology justifies taking kids away from law-abiding parents, you have massive problems.

Clinton standing up to the Cuban Exile crazies and the zealots of the far Right was a great American moment. And something Americans now fighting for their parental rights against other countries who have their kids and justifying it on ideology and religion – deeply appreciate. Sweden is holding a couple US kids with relatives of a Swedish emigre who married an American man, then died on a visit, because of concern’s over the kids access to good schools and healthcare insurance in the USA. Well-meaning Swedish socialists have effectively kidnapped the two children to serve as statements of their ideology.
And several Muslim countries have stated it is better for a child of a Muslim NOT to be returned to full or joint custody of an American because they honestly believe returning a child to a good, law-abiding US parent might put the childs very soul at risk of never reaching Paradise.

Bill Clinton believed, as most Americans do, that politics should never destroy parental custody rights – ever. A good parent has a right to raise their child, no matter what sort of politics or religion they live under. As Elians relatives raged (most with criminal and mental health issues) and angry Exiles stormed the streets, I remembered thinking that if Clinton had only had more acts of political courage instead of triangulations, whored out to Wall Street on a Bush II level, Bill’s always lawyering away ethics, and his craven capitulations – he might have one day been remembered as a excellent President, even a great one.

Jan 17, 2009 - 3:59 pm 19. Gozer the Carpathian:

For me I call BS that his response to DC vs Heller shows he’ll stay away from the 2nd amendment. There are so many way he’ll be able to mess with our gun rights that I doubt he’ll be able to help himself. I for one have no illusions that there won’t be a fresh assault on the 2nd amendment from this AG and the new administration.

Jan 17, 2009 - 4:50 pm 20. Marc Malone:

I don’t understand all this hand-wringing from my fellow Pubs. We warned that Mr. Guilt-by-Association had no integrity and would bring in other sleazebags. The Dems are solidly in charge just about everywhere. This is the predicted result. What’s the problem? We are being vindicated. We get to say I told you so.

Of course, no one will ever hear it….

Jan 17, 2009 - 4:54 pm 21. Jim Baker:

Marc Malone,
Sorry, but I am not the least bit interested in “I told you so”. I believe that the only thing unique about the American Constitution was its complete focus on the idea that government can only be good if it is the protector of individual liberty.(Please excuse my redundancy, only individuals can have liberty) The Republican Party does not represent this view by any of its recent behavior. I don’t want to say “I told you so” after these collectivists have destroyed the only thing that makes our country great.

Jan 17, 2009 - 8:18 pm 22. Fat Man:

I hope the Republicans drop their opposition to Eric Holder. Remember what we got for opposing Clinton’s first 2 AG nominees — Janet Reno.

Jan 18, 2009 - 3:19 pm 23. narciso:

I wasn’t going to go there, Cedarford, but you de realize in Cuba, as in pre 1991 Russia, China, et al there is no such thing as parental rights; the child is the property of the state, Holder, gave his John Hancock on the abduction, transport and subsequent brainwashing of a small
child; that ought to have blocked him from any job above clerk at McDonald’s; they have higher
standards, Greg Craig, the incoming counsel, was
the negotiator to this travesty. They give the likes of Marc Rich, the FALN and SusanRosemberg,
not to mention Carlos vignello;(sic) the politically connected drug trafficker, the get out of jail free card, yet they are considering
the idea of prosecuting our men and women, for
neccessary actions during the war on terror.
connected.

Romney was torpedoed in part by the followers of Huckabee, but more significantly by the anti-Mormon campaign in the wider media. The same media that could barely even utter the word
‘Reverend Wright” and the content of his sermons, picked over long discarded aspects of Mormon doctrine, they tore into unrelated details related to Romney’s erstwhile work with Bain Capital. Just like they made up a passel of garbage, about the Governor of Alaska, nad seeded it on Youtube, wikipedia, every corner of google, which dim witted writers of SNL picked up and fed to the likes of Tina Fey. Which you swallowed hook line and sinker.

So we are not to fight Holder, because they might come up with someone worse, like say former 9/11 commissioner and Fannie mae executive Jamie Gorelick, possible but doesn’t that violate some ethical obligation.

Jan 18, 2009 - 7:49 pm 24. ex-Democrat:

I guess Obama wants to out-corrupt the Clinton administration.

Eric Holder is a marxist disgrace and I’ll tell it to his face.

Let’s roll.

Jan 21, 2009 - 2:05 pm