Eric Holder is playing the victim vard in this sympathetic interview with Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/eric-holder-says-republicans-have-made-him-a-proxy-to-attack-president-obama/2012/07/02/gJQAKDxMJW_story.html
Holder claims that it has nothing to do with the (140,000+) documents that he is withholding from Congress, documents that almost surely would incriminate him and God knows who else above and below him in the planning, execution and cover-up of Operation Fast and Furious. It is all about trying to get at Obama through him. It is all about his other actions as attorney general trying to protect the voting rights of (dead and illegal alien) people to vote. Notice that the name of Brian Terry is not even mentioned in this article-only in passing reference to the killing of a Border Patrol agent.
Holder is wallowing in self pity even as he continues his shameful cover up and allowing street agents in Arizona to bear the blame for an operation so bizaare it could have only been concocted by bureaucrats in Washington for no imaginable law enforcement purpose, rather to prove that the administration was correct in alleging that 80-90% of guns in the hands of Mexican cartels had originated in the US.
Not to mention clouding the issue by claiming that it all started under Bush. It did not.
Eric Holder has corrupted this Justice Department beyond all recognition. And it goes higher than him. That is why he has not been canned. That is why we have the claim of executive privilege. That is why he continues to hold out.
Someone has his back. Too bad the Post doesn't ask the right questions.
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8 comments:
I wonder if he would agree to an interview with the Washington TImes
Holder is correct. Too bad those who have their hearts set on the Fast and Furious red herring have to deny everything he said because, well, this is Eric Holder speaking, and, we've already announced he is guilty as sin, so, if he says otherwise, he must be in denial, because, well, we're convinced he's guilty as sin, or at least, we'll believe anything if it shows promise of undermining the Obama administration...
Cabbie if I were in Holder's shoes, I would agree to an interview with the Washington Times, even if it is a Moonie-funded artificiality, and I would mop up the floor with any agenda they cared to run. (Don't tell me that the Washington Times wouldn't have an agenda -- you know they would, that's why you offered them as an example). Holder seems to be playing it safe. He should recognize that the best defense is a good offense.
How about Holder agree to an interview with me? See who mops up the floor with whom.
Gary--second that motion.
Siarlys--this is about as far as you can get from a red herring. Have you forgotten there is such a thing as principle??
Bill Clinton was (still is, for that matter)guilty as sin of perjury, subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness/evidence tampering,bank fraud (among other finaancial crimes), and most likely sexual assault/rape as well. Therefore, again most probably, he is also guilty of a lot other stuff we don't even know about.
A lot of the same stuff was said about Republicans "investigating" him back then, and I guess it all depends on your context and perspective. Clinton should have been impeached (which he was). That's principle. He should also have been removed, but thanks to a bunch of gutless wonders in the Senate, to include a few "Republicans", he was not.
There is no evidence that Monica Lewinsky was either unwilling or underage. That more or less rules out rape. That Clinton was a horny bastard who should have known better is an understatement. That he lied about it is obvious. Whether that is sufficient basis to remove a President from office is another question. I hardly think the security of the United States was endangered. Revoking his license to practice law was an appropriate penalty.
Likewise, Anita Hill's testimony said little or nothing about why Clarence Thomas should not have been confirmed to the Supreme Court. (His own autobiography provides ample evidence that he was unqualified.)
I call this a red herring, because there is no evidence of a deliberate decision at the highest levels to watch guns walk into Mexico and kiss them good-bye. Both parties are oriented to digging up any plausible scandal, on the theory that voters won't be impressed with the substance of what either party is offering, but a scandal might tip an election.
(My critique of the Democratic Party is available here:
http://siarlysjenkins.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-i-will-vote-to-re-elect-president.html)
All Gary's horses and all Issa's men haven't put together anything but a picture of bureaucratic infighting, squabbling, and legitimate objections, at the operational levels of one or two gargantuan federal agencies. A bipartisan effort to exert higher quality su'ervision would be very much in order. "Tain't happening.
As for who would mop the floor with who, Gary can make a good case that Osama bin Laden is a bad guy, but that's a low bar. He can also skewer Mel Gibson, with a little help from his friends. Most of his exposes require a good deal of imagination to take seriously. One on one, face to face, I don't think he's a match for Holder. I also don't expect the Attorney General of the United States to make time to be interviewed for a blog that has a loyal readership of five, six if Lance is still reading in muzzled silence, seven if we include Ingrid.
I was not talking about Monica in terms of sexual assault/rape. A number of legitimate allegations in this regard exist which were not adequately investigated by anybody (Juanita Broderick, among others, comes immediately to mind). In my view Clinton most likely was, and quite possibly still is, a sexual predator if he is not yet too old for same.
Among the reasons for impeachment/removal are the commission of treason, bribery, and, I believe, “other high crimes and misdemeanors”. Misdemeanors, as used in the Constitution, are not necessarily criminal in nature. Neither do any of the impeachable acts necessarily require national security involvement. I do not see how you can read it other than that “other high crimes” which are similar to the enumerated ones would also serve as a basis for impeachment.
And in that regard, bribery and perjury are fairly similar in that they are both dishonest acts, are both felonies, are generally subject to the same relative punishment, and are in fact sometimes “companion crimes” in that with some frequency, individuals are bribed to commit perjury. I do not see the same question you see; if bribery is sufficient for removal, so is perjury, even though it is not specified in the Constitution. License revocation is strictly a temporary measure, which does not result in prohibition of holding high office in the future, and is thereby inadequate in this instance.
Evidence of watching guns walk into Mexico and kissing them goodbye is most certainly out there, that was the intent and basis for the entire program. Further, we are now past that and into the “cover-up” phase, which may be even worse.
And speaking of principle, while you probably would not agree, Rep. Issa is in fact, in my view, a man of principle. And when you speak of “bipartisan effort”, you would not know unless you happened to watch a little program on Fox the evening of July 4th because you will not hear about it from any other media outlet, but Issa was a guest in one segment and was personally present. The discussion appeared to be essentially unscripted, at least to me.
Although Issa was certainly critical of Obama and his administration in some areas, he actually was complimentary, apparently ungrudgingly, in terms of Obama/national security regarding the non-closure of Gitmo and his efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as his actions in spending reductions in areas such at the GSA travel boondoggle. And although it may have happened, it has been a long time indeed since I personally have seen/heard any Democrat behave in a remotely similar fashion to any Republican, usually hearing only how George W. Bush in particular, and the Republicans in general, are still responsible for the ills of the country, after Bush has been out of office, and Obama has been in office coming up on four years pretty soon now.
elwood, my sensible if misguided friend, Rep. Gerald Ford once got up to speak on the floor of the House, and observed that good behavior in office, high crimes and misdemeanors, and all such phrases "mean whatever we choose for them to mean." In a sense, this is true. In that sense, you are right.
My reading of the 55 senators who offered the formal vote, "Not guilty," was that the evidence presented by the Gingrich prosecutorial committee did not amount to a reason to remove the president from office. I think they were right. The phrases mean "whatever we choose for them to mean" for the trial panel, as well as for those who voted to impeach.
The framers were not too specific, because they felt there should be some recourse to malfeasance by a president, but couldn't really picture what cause might invoke such recourse. The impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson set a very high bar -- since then it has been understood that even serious misjudgement or incompetence was not sufficient.
The Johnson precedent already set the bar at "Just because you passionately deplore the president's policies, does not justify impeachment." There is no doubt that the Gingrich cabal shared this motivation. Clinton's election offended their sense of entitlement, that "We get a century or so to dominate everything now, don't interrupt us, its our turn."
The Clinton trial set a further precedent: the individual in the oval office may have committed crimes personally, but unless these crimes involved the misuse of the powers of his office, or endangered the integrity of the nation, they do not rise to the level of removing him from office, any more than his office shields him from the ordinary course of justice.
As for George W. Bush, in the words of my sainted Protestant mother, the Republican and fiscal conservative in the family, GWB "has done a great deal of damage to this country."
Obama is responsible for his own watch, but two things Obama cannot change:
1) On the precipice of Great Depression 2.0, massive deficit spending was absolutely imperative, and,
2) Because the national debt doubled on GWB's watch, this took us to a total debt of $15 trillion, rather than $8 - $10 trillion.
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