Eric Holder To Step Down As Attorney General (1 Viewer)

[rockaction]

rockaction I enjoy your posts, I think you're a thoughtful guy, and I didn't take anything you wrote as an attack. I would love to have an intelligent discussion or debate with you on the subjects relating to the evaluation of Eric Holder. But I don't want to discuss misspelling; that's silly and not at all interesting.

Sure thing, tim. I have no prob with yours, either. But I'll still maintain that if you're really involved in a subject, you won't spell it wrong. That's not that accidental misspellings can't happen; it's that one hasn't done enough research or involved one's self enough. It's a weird position to take, and it'll bite me in the ###, but I think it's true. Think about it: Do you really want fantasy football advice from a guy that says "Denaryiuss More?"

 

[jon_mx]

rockaction I enjoy your posts, I think you're a thoughtful guy, and I didn't take anything you wrote as an attack. I would love to have an intelligent discussion or debate with you on the subjects relating to the evaluation of Eric Holder. But I don't want to discuss misspelling; that's silly and not at all interesting.

Sure thing, tim. I have no prob with yours, either. But I'll still maintain that if you're really involved in a subject, you won't spell it wrong. That's not that accidental misspellings can't happen; it's that one hasn't done enough research or involved one's self enough. It's a weird position to take, and it'll bite me in the ###, but I think it's true. Think about it: Do you really want fantasy football advice from a guy that says "Denaryiuss More?"

I could use more from Denaryiuss.

 

[StrikeS2k]

rockaction I enjoy your posts, I think you're a thoughtful guy, and I didn't take anything you wrote as an attack. I would love to have an intelligent discussion or debate with you on the subjects relating to the evaluation of Eric Holder. But I don't want to discuss misspelling; that's silly and not at all interesting.

Sure thing, tim. I have no prob with yours, either. But I'll still maintain that if you're really involved in a subject, you won't spell it wrong. That's not that accidental misspellings can't happen; it's that one hasn't done enough research or involved one's self enough. It's a weird position to take, and it'll bite me in the ###, but I think it's true. Think about it: Do you really want fantasy football advice from a guy that says "Denaryiuss More?"

I could use more from Denaryiuss.

Denaryiuss Thomas has been killing me. Fortunately the rest of the team is picking up the slack.

 

[Varmint]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

 

[timschochet]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

well if it's period, there's no point in discussing it any further.

 

[rockaction]

rockaction I enjoy your posts, I think you're a thoughtful guy, and I didn't take anything you wrote as an attack. I would love to have an intelligent discussion or debate with you on the subjects relating to the evaluation of Eric Holder. But I don't want to discuss misspelling; that's silly and not at all interesting.

Sure thing, tim. I have no prob with yours, either. But I'll still maintain that if you're really involved in a subject, you won't spell it wrong. That's not that accidental misspellings can't happen; it's that one hasn't done enough research or involved one's self enough. It's a weird position to take, and it'll bite me in the ###, but I think it's true. Think about it: Do you really want fantasy football advice from a guy that says "Denaryiuss More?"

I could use more from Denaryiuss.

Denaryiuss Thomas has been killing me. Fortunately the rest of the team is picking up the slack.

 

[Varmint]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

well if it's period, there's no point in discussing it any further.

Don't be butt-hurt.

It's not like I said "nuff said".

I phonetically inserted a . (period)

but hey.... "you've certainly managed to pinpoint the one major flaw in what I posted."

(you don't mind me borrowing that line...do you?)



..

 

[tommyGunZ]

IMO Holder could have been better on drug policy, but overall he's a vast improvement over recent AG's.

 

[Fennis]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

how much talk radio do you listen to a day? Its got to be off the charts..

 

[jon_mx]

IMO Holder could have been better on drug policy, but overall he's a vast improvement over recent AG's.

shocking.

 

[Varmint]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

how much talk radio do you listen to a day? Its got to be off the charts..

"you've certainly managed to pinpoint the one major flaw in what I posted."

(used without permission)

Maybe an hour or two for you would open your eyes......maybe.

You can't make an informed decision until you've been....informed.

 

[Varmint]

IMO Holder could have been better on drug policy, but overall he's a vast improvement over recent AG's.

you mean...in the "left's" opinion...don't you?

 

[Fennis]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

how much talk radio do you listen to a day? Its got to be off the charts..

"you've certainly managed to pinpoint the one major flaw in what I posted."

(used without permission)

If you believe in the good of mankind, and for the sanity of others you might want to dial it back some. Up to you.

 

[Varmint]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

how much talk radio do you listen to a day? Its got to be off the charts..

"you've certainly managed to pinpoint the one major flaw in what I posted."

(used without permission)

If you believe in the good of mankind, and for the sanity of others you might want to dial it back some. Up to you.

awwwww.....how sweet.

What if I believe that this current administration is lying to me?

What do I do then?

Help expose the lies or just fall in line with all of the other sheep?

What do I do when I KNOW that the media is protecting this President and won't even look for those lies?

Do I keep tuning in to the same lies or do I take the time to actually seek out the truth?

NOT reporting is the same as mis-reporting.

Like I've said before.....This President could kill, skin, and eat a puppy on live television and the media would report that he's making the world safe for future generations of cats.

....and people like you would believe it.

I can smell the crap that they're shoveling.

You obviously cannot.

 

[Fennis]

People cannot "defend" the actions of the left without invoking ghosts of the past.

They just can't do it.

"well...THEY did it"..."they did it worse"...."but he's not as bad as...."

If you feel the need to defend someone...defend him on his record, not someone else's.

If he's a hero....call him a hero.

But call a piece of ####...a piece of ####....regardless of where he ranks on the scale.

Holder was a race baiting, puppet, for Barack Obama and his administration....period.

how much talk radio do you listen to a day? Its got to be off the charts..

"you've certainly managed to pinpoint the one major flaw in what I posted."

(used without permission)

If you believe in the good of mankind, and for the sanity of others you might want to dial it back some. Up to you.

awwwww.....how sweet.

What if I believe that this current administration is lying to me?

What do I do then?

Help expose the lies or just fall in line with all of the other sheep?

listen to more talk radio I guess.

 

[jon_mx]

Some excerpts from an article from the Washington Post in 2011:

- Holder’s bad advice began almost immediately after Obama took office, when he and White House counsel Greg Craig convinced the president to announce the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010 — without even examining the feasibility of doing so. Not only did the president suffer the indignity of missing this deadline, public opinion turned against the decision so sharply that Democrats abandoned the president and joined Republicans in voting 90-to-6 in the Senate to block funds for the facility’s closure. Almost three years later, Guantanamo remains open and the administration has given up hope of closing it.

- The next unneeded firestorm came with Holder’s decision to release classified Justice Department memos on the CIA terrorist interrogation program and reopen criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators. Holder overrode the objections of five CIA directors, including Leon Panetta. According to The Post, “Before his decision to reopen the cases, Holder did not read detailed memos that [career] prosecutors drafted and placed in files to explain their decision to decline prosecutions.” If he had bothered to do so, he could have predicted the eventual outcome: The special prosecutor he appointed came to the same conclusion as the career prosecutors under the Bush administration and found no criminal wrongdoing by the CIA officials involved in the agency’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program. After two years of wasted resources and needless controversy, Holder came up empty.

- Then came Holder’s order to read Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (who goes on trial this week) a Miranda warning after just 50 minutes of questioning – an order the attorney general gave without even consulting chief intelligence or national security officials. Holder’s administration colleagues were forced to argue (implausibly) that Miranda was really not an impediment to effective interrogation – only to have Holder undercut them few months later when he admitted that this was not true, and asked Congress to fix the Miranda law to allow longer interrogations. Not only did Holder’s Miranda decision cost America valuable intelligence, the ensuing controversy helped propel Scott Brown to victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, costing Obama his filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. According to Brown’s chief strategist, internal polls showed the treatment of enemy combatants was a more potent issue in the election than was health care.

- Then there was Holder’s catastrophic attempt to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters in federal court in New York City.According to The Post, Holder made the decision alone, at 1 a.m., while eating Chips Ahoy cookies at his kitchen table. He did so without first consulting New York officials, who responded with outrage — as did the general public. In the face of the bipartisan backlash, the administration was forced to backtrack, and it soon announced the resumption of military commission trials at Guantanamo for Mohammed and other terrorists.

- This only scratches the surface of ill-fated Holder initiatives. He also provoked a political firestorm by withdrawing a lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party for violations of the Voting Rights Act, over the objections of six career lawyers at Justice. And then there was his decision to sue Arizona over its popular immigration law, over the objections of three Arizona Democrats engaged in tough reelection fights (two of whom lost their seats).

Many of these debacles stem from Holder’s failure to do due diligence: He failed to consult the intelligence community before giving the Christmas bomber a Miranda warning; he failed to read the memos in which career prosecutors explained why CIA prosecutions were a legal dead end; he failed to consult New York officials about trying Mohammed in their city; he failed to conduct even a cursory review before pushing Obama to announce the closure of Guantanamo; he failed to read the Arizona immigration law before publicly opposing it. One such failure is a mistake; this many is a pattern of gross incompetence.

 

[HellToupee]

Whomever has been running the tim account lately has been doing top notch work

 

[Varmint]

.....but.....what about ...uh....Elliot Richardson??

He was bad too....maybe even worse!!

so there.

 

[rockaction]

Whomever has been running the tim account lately has been doing top notch work

You can't cut the weird, No Label middle any better than tim.

 

[timschochet]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

 

[cstu]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

I think we can all agree that Holder was rather incompetent, but the vitriol towards him goes well beyond his capability at being AG.

 

[timschochet]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

 

[Varmint]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

"most of the scandals"

 

[Varmint]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Obama is a narcissist.

I seriously doubt that anyone has "talked him out" of anything at anytime.

Oh...and if you're not up to speed yet.....Obama promised his supporters a LOT of things that he didn't deliver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9NarSVh1aE

 

[Baloney Sandwich]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

I think we can all agree that Holder was rather incompetent, but the vitriol towards him goes well beyond his capability at being AG.

His mustache definitely makes me angry

 

[timschochet]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

"most of the scandals"

You're improving. At first your only contribution to these topics were long-winded, hate filled diatribes which sounded very much like junk emails. Now, recently, you've started to respond to other posts. That's a positive step! Unfortunately your responses remain full of simplistic vitriol and you have yet to offer anything at all of substance. But keep at it, and someday you may be worth engaging in real discussion.

 

[jon_mx]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

I think we can all agree that Holder was rather incompetent, but the vitriol towards him goes well beyond his capability at being AG.

His mustache definitely makes me angry

Kind of like Hitler's.

 

[tommyboy]

from a guy that used to work for Holder at DOJ;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/25/goodbye-eric-and-goodridance/?singlepage=true

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm.

Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.


When I first reported on the racially motivated law enforcement of Holder’s Justice Department, it seemed fanciful to some. But after six years of Holder hugging Al Sharpton, stoking racial division in places like Florida and Ferguson, after suing police and fire departments to impose racial hiring requirements, after refusing to enforce election laws that protect white victims or require voter rolls to be cleaned, after launching harassing litigation against peaceful pro-life protesters, after incident after incident of dishonesty and contempt before Congress — after all this, it was clear to anyone with any intellectual honesty that this man had a vision of the law at odds with the nation’s traditions.

Why would it surprise anyone he behaved as he did? As I made clear in my book Injustice, he carried around a quote in his wallet for 40 years about race that, he explained to the Washington Post, indicated that he had common cause with the black criminal. That’s a fact. That’s who he is.

And few in the House knew how to hold him accountable. Some who did are Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep Frank Wolf (R-Va), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. Daryl Issa (R-CA). Unfortunately, too many others failed to understand what they were up against.

Eric Holder was a radical progressive who used the power of the federal government to impose his progressivism on the United States. He loved big interventionist government that took sides based on your politics and your race. He was a menace to the rule of law.

So he exits. But instead of being shamed into obscurity as he ought to be, he will cash in. He’ll abandon the tools of dividing Americans between black and white and worry about a new color: gold. When Holder lands at a big and shameless lawfirm in Washington, D.C., it will say as much about the country in 2014 as Holder’s rancid tenure said about the modern Democratic Party.

That someone like Eric Holder can find a lucrative career in this town, and be feted at all the right cocktail parties, says a great deal about what we have lost as a nation. In another era, a man like Holder, unmoored from the law and the truth would not have a future. Instead, I suspect Holder has a very bright one.

Those of you clamoring for “indictments” or “prosecution” of the man can give up. It isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to happen to him, except that he will move on to a job that even most “1 percenters” wouldn’t recognize.

Holder’s tenure represents the beginnings of a post-Constitutional era, where the chief law enforcement officer of the United States serves to dismantle legal traditions. Holder is the first attorney general to whom law seemed to be an option, a suggestion on the way to a progressive future. Most folks, and most lawyers, who didn’t devote daily attention to him might not have noticed the ground shifting during his tenure. But shift it did, and very deliberately.

Law, like liberty, is a tenuous thing. Failing to understand the sources of domestic tranquility, the sources of your relatively good life, usually also means failing to recognize the threats to that pleasant tranquility. Holder used his time at Justice to do things that corrode the rule of law. Law and liberty are precious things, and Holder did enormous damage to both.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

Remember that scene in Scanners where the guy's head explodes? He was thinking about this thread.

 

[dhockster]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If your opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

 

[HellToupee]

Tommy thanks for the post . That was an interesting article but others might say nay , nay.

 

[jon_mx]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Holder spent nearly a year working on a plan with a team of lawyers to make it happen. His planned lacked so many basic considerations of law and logic that it was universally criticized. It had nothing to do with providing Obama political cover for a broken campaign promise. Holder's incompetence and inability to produce a workable plan was absolutely the reason for the effort to fail. I am not sure how you can spin it any other way.

 

[Slapdash]

Holder's actions to prevent/delay the plans of certain states to disenfranchise minorities is probably the best part of his tenure. I just wish fought as hard for other civil liberties instead of against them. Or actually cared about the rampant illegal activities the financial sector was up to.

 

[timschochet]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

I think we can all agree that Holder was rather incompetent, but the vitriol towards him goes well beyond his capability at being AG.

Definitely agree with the second half of your statement; it was my original point in this thread.

As to the first part, perhaps he's competent, perhaps he isn't, nothing in this thread is suggestive of incompetency (at least IMO.) My point about Gitmo is that I think that after Obama was elected, he told Holder, "Come up with a way to try these guys as felons", and while Holder was working on that, the "security establishment" (meaning the NSA, CIA, State Department, military, and Homeland Security) told Obama, "Mr. President, you can't do it." And so Obama changed his mind, and Holder was left twisting in the wind. That's lousy, but of course it happens all the time.

 

[Slapdash]

I'm not as up to date on that issue as I should be Sand, but I think that earlier in this thread Ramsay Hunt offered an explanation.

A pretty weak one though. Just another example of Obama's presidency is BAU instead of delivering on change.

 

[Varmint]

Jon thanks for the post. The issue of how Holder handled the terrorists at Gitmo is a sound critique of his performance, and worthy of a lot more discussion than most of the scandals, IMO.

"most of the scandals"

You're improving.At first your only contribution to these topics were long-winded, hate filled diatribes which sounded very much like junk emails. Now, recently, you've started to respond to other posts. That's a positive step! Unfortunately your responses remain full of simplistic vitriol and you have yet to offer anything at all of substance. But keep at it, and someday you may be worth engaging in real discussion.

with you??

oooo

Dare I dream?

 

[timschochet]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If you opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

My opinions on racial issues are definitely left leaning and I've never pretended otherwise. I try as much as the next guy to be open-minded but can't claim success.

However, I don't regard my self as a leftist, because I strongly disagree with most of them on other issues not related to race. I think if you were to poll most of the true progressives in this forum, they would take issue with the idea of me as one of them.

 

[Varmint]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If you opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

My opinions on racial issues are definitely left leaning and I've never pretended otherwise. I try as much as the next guy to be open-minded but can't claim success.

However, I don't regard my self as a leftist, because I strongly disagree with most of them on other issues not related to race. I think if you were to poll most of the true progressives in this forum, they would take issue with the idea of me as one of them.

 

[timschochet]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Holder spent nearly a year working on a plan with a team of lawyers to make it happen. His planned lacked so many basic considerations of law and logic that it was universally criticized. It had nothing to do with providing Obama political cover for a broken campaign promise. Holder's incompetence and inability to produce a workable plan was absolutely the reason for the effort to fail. I am not sure how you can spin it any other way.

Really?

In that case, I challenge you, jon, to come up with a competent way to close down Gitmo and try everyone there under the US civil courts system. According to you, there is one, and Holder was just too incompetent to figure it out. So you come up with one, please.

 

[cstu]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If you opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

My opinions on racial issues are definitely left leaning and I've never pretended otherwise. I try as much as the next guy to be open-minded but can't claim success.

However, I don't regard my self as a leftist, because I strongly disagree with most of them on other issues not related to race. I think if you were to poll most of the true progressives in this forum, they would take issue with the idea of me as one of them.

Tim is not a conservative, but he feels bad about it.

 

[timschochet]

from a guy that used to work for Holder at DOJ;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/25/goodbye-eric-and-goodridance/?singlepage=true

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm.

Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.


When I first reported on the racially motivated law enforcement of Holder’s Justice Department, it seemed fanciful to some. But after six years of Holder hugging Al Sharpton, stoking racial division in places like Florida and Ferguson, after suing police and fire departments to impose racial hiring requirements, after refusing to enforce election laws that protect white victims or require voter rolls to be cleaned, after launching harassing litigation against peaceful pro-life protesters, after incident after incident of dishonesty and contempt before Congress — after all this, it was clear to anyone with any intellectual honesty that this man had a vision of the law at odds with the nation’s traditions.

Why would it surprise anyone he behaved as he did? As I made clear in my book Injustice, he carried around a quote in his wallet for 40 years about race that, he explained to the Washington Post, indicated that he had common cause with the black criminal. That’s a fact. That’s who he is.

And few in the House knew how to hold him accountable. Some who did are Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep Frank Wolf (R-Va), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. Daryl Issa (R-CA). Unfortunately, too many others failed to understand what they were up against.

Eric Holder was a radical progressive who used the power of the federal government to impose his progressivism on the United States. He loved big interventionist government that took sides based on your politics and your race. He was a menace to the rule of law.

So he exits. But instead of being shamed into obscurity as he ought to be, he will cash in. He’ll abandon the tools of dividing Americans between black and white and worry about a new color: gold. When Holder lands at a big and shameless lawfirm in Washington, D.C., it will say as much about the country in 2014 as Holder’s rancid tenure said about the modern Democratic Party.

That someone like Eric Holder can find a lucrative career in this town, and be feted at all the right cocktail parties, says a great deal about what we have lost as a nation. In another era, a man like Holder, unmoored from the law and the truth would not have a future. Instead, I suspect Holder has a very bright one.

Those of you clamoring for “indictments” or “prosecution” of the man can give up. It isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to happen to him, except that he will move on to a job that even most “1 percenters” wouldn’t recognize.

Holder’s tenure represents the beginnings of a post-Constitutional era, where the chief law enforcement officer of the United States serves to dismantle legal traditions. Holder is the first attorney general to whom law seemed to be an option, a suggestion on the way to a progressive future. Most folks, and most lawyers, who didn’t devote daily attention to him might not have noticed the ground shifting during his tenure. But shift it did, and very deliberately.

Law, like liberty, is a tenuous thing. Failing to understand the sources of domestic tranquility, the sources of your relatively good life, usually also means failing to recognize the threats to that pleasant tranquility. Holder used his time at Justice to do things that corrode the rule of law. Law and liberty are precious things, and Holder did enormous damage to both.

This is an interesting critique, but it's incredibly partisan. It was written by a guy who objects with progressive views on race, on voting, on abortion. If you don't like all those things, then of course you're going to consider Holder to be a terrible attorney general. But you're also going to consider ANY progressive attorney general to be terrible, and you're going to dislike any member of of a Democratic administration.

 

[tommyGunZ]

from a guy that used to work for Holder at DOJ;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/25/goodbye-eric-and-goodridance/?singlepage=true

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm.

Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.


When I first reported on the racially motivated law enforcement of Holder’s Justice Department, it seemed fanciful to some. But after six years of Holder hugging Al Sharpton, stoking racial division in places like Florida and Ferguson, after suing police and fire departments to impose racial hiring requirements, after refusing to enforce election laws that protect white victims or require voter rolls to be cleaned, after launching harassing litigation against peaceful pro-life protesters, after incident after incident of dishonesty and contempt before Congress — after all this, it was clear to anyone with any intellectual honesty that this man had a vision of the law at odds with the nation’s traditions.

Why would it surprise anyone he behaved as he did? As I made clear in my book Injustice, he carried around a quote in his wallet for 40 years about race that, he explained to the Washington Post, indicated that he had common cause with the black criminal. That’s a fact. That’s who he is.

And few in the House knew how to hold him accountable. Some who did are Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep Frank Wolf (R-Va), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. Daryl Issa (R-CA). Unfortunately, too many others failed to understand what they were up against.

Eric Holder was a radical progressive who used the power of the federal government to impose his progressivism on the United States. He loved big interventionist government that took sides based on your politics and your race. He was a menace to the rule of law.

So he exits. But instead of being shamed into obscurity as he ought to be, he will cash in. He’ll abandon the tools of dividing Americans between black and white and worry about a new color: gold. When Holder lands at a big and shameless lawfirm in Washington, D.C., it will say as much about the country in 2014 as Holder’s rancid tenure said about the modern Democratic Party.

That someone like Eric Holder can find a lucrative career in this town, and be feted at all the right cocktail parties, says a great deal about what we have lost as a nation. In another era, a man like Holder, unmoored from the law and the truth would not have a future. Instead, I suspect Holder has a very bright one.

Those of you clamoring for “indictments” or “prosecution” of the man can give up. It isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to happen to him, except that he will move on to a job that even most “1 percenters” wouldn’t recognize.

Holder’s tenure represents the beginnings of a post-Constitutional era, where the chief law enforcement officer of the United States serves to dismantle legal traditions. Holder is the first attorney general to whom law seemed to be an option, a suggestion on the way to a progressive future. Most folks, and most lawyers, who didn’t devote daily attention to him might not have noticed the ground shifting during his tenure. But shift it did, and very deliberately.

Law, like liberty, is a tenuous thing. Failing to understand the sources of domestic tranquility, the sources of your relatively good life, usually also means failing to recognize the threats to that pleasant tranquility. Holder used his time at Justice to do things that corrode the rule of law. Law and liberty are precious things, and Holder did enormous damage to both.

Oh how I wish the bold was true.

 

[jon_mx]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Holder spent nearly a year working on a plan with a team of lawyers to make it happen. His planned lacked so many basic considerations of law and logic that it was universally criticized. It had nothing to do with providing Obama political cover for a broken campaign promise. Holder's incompetence and inability to produce a workable plan was absolutely the reason for the effort to fail. I am not sure how you can spin it any other way.

Really?

In that case, I challenge you, jon, to come up with a competent way to close down Gitmo and try everyone there under the US civil courts system. According to you, there is one, and Holder was just too incompetent to figure it out. So you come up with one, please.

He should have proceeded with the military tribunals for the truly dangerous ones who they had cases against, and return the others to the countries they were taken from.

 

[Varmint]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Holder spent nearly a year working on a plan with a team of lawyers to make it happen. His planned lacked so many basic considerations of law and logic that it was universally criticized. It had nothing to do with providing Obama political cover for a broken campaign promise. Holder's incompetence and inability to produce a workable plan was absolutely the reason for the effort to fail. I am not sure how you can spin it any other way.

Really?

In that case, I challenge you, jon, to come up with a competent way to close down Gitmo and try everyone there under the US civil courts system. According to you, there is one, and Holder was just too incompetent to figure it out. So you come up with one, please.

Obama said that HE was going to do it....was he lying or just talking out of his ### when he said it.

 

[jon_mx]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If you opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

My opinions on racial issues are definitely left leaning and I've never pretended otherwise. I try as much as the next guy to be open-minded but can't claim success.

However, I don't regard my self as a leftist, because I strongly disagree with most of them on other issues not related to race. I think if you were to poll most of the true progressives in this forum, they would take issue with the idea of me as one of them.

Just a few of the Issues you agree with progressives on outside of race:

- immigration

- social spending

- gay marriage

- abortion

- global warming

- gun control

- legalization of drugs (i think)

I can't think of any issues you agree with conservatives on, except for maybe military spending. You are at odds with both progressives and conservatives on some issues like spying on Americans.

 

[tom22406]

This sounds perfect for Holder to do next

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2014/09/25/roger-goodell-nfl-should-hire-eric-holder-to-oversee-off-field-player-discipline/

 

[rockaction]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

By definition, can you be "Somewhat of an idealist"? Isn't an idealist already at one end of the spectrum?

Tim, I think your opinions are pretty left leaning, but it seems you try to write in a way that, in your mind, makes you seem open-minded, in the middle. If you opinions lean left then just own that. Stop trying to seem like you are the most reasonable man because you can see both sides of issue.

My opinions on racial issues are definitely left leaning and I've never pretended otherwise. I try as much as the next guy to be open-minded but can't claim success.

However, I don't regard my self as a leftist, because I strongly disagree with most of them on other issues not related to race. I think if you were to poll most of the true progressives in this forum, they would take issue with the idea of me as one of them.

Just a few of the Issues you agree with progressives on outside of race:

- immigration

- social spending

- gay marriage

- abortion

- global warming

- gun control

- legalization of drugs (i think)

I can't think of any issues you agree with conservatives on, except for maybe military spending. You are at odds with both progressives and conservatives on some issues like spying on Americans.

Corporate tax rates.

/notebook

 

[tommyboy]

from a guy that used to work for Holder at DOJ;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/25/goodbye-eric-and-goodridance/?singlepage=true

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm.

Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.


When I first reported on the racially motivated law enforcement of Holder’s Justice Department, it seemed fanciful to some. But after six years of Holder hugging Al Sharpton, stoking racial division in places like Florida and Ferguson, after suing police and fire departments to impose racial hiring requirements, after refusing to enforce election laws that protect white victims or require voter rolls to be cleaned, after launching harassing litigation against peaceful pro-life protesters, after incident after incident of dishonesty and contempt before Congress — after all this, it was clear to anyone with any intellectual honesty that this man had a vision of the law at odds with the nation’s traditions.

Why would it surprise anyone he behaved as he did? As I made clear in my book Injustice, he carried around a quote in his wallet for 40 years about race that, he explained to the Washington Post, indicated that he had common cause with the black criminal. That’s a fact. That’s who he is.

And few in the House knew how to hold him accountable. Some who did are Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep Frank Wolf (R-Va), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. Daryl Issa (R-CA). Unfortunately, too many others failed to understand what they were up against.

Eric Holder was a radical progressive who used the power of the federal government to impose his progressivism on the United States. He loved big interventionist government that took sides based on your politics and your race. He was a menace to the rule of law.

So he exits. But instead of being shamed into obscurity as he ought to be, he will cash in. He’ll abandon the tools of dividing Americans between black and white and worry about a new color: gold. When Holder lands at a big and shameless lawfirm in Washington, D.C., it will say as much about the country in 2014 as Holder’s rancid tenure said about the modern Democratic Party.

That someone like Eric Holder can find a lucrative career in this town, and be feted at all the right cocktail parties, says a great deal about what we have lost as a nation. In another era, a man like Holder, unmoored from the law and the truth would not have a future. Instead, I suspect Holder has a very bright one.

Those of you clamoring for “indictments” or “prosecution” of the man can give up. It isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to happen to him, except that he will move on to a job that even most “1 percenters” wouldn’t recognize.

Holder’s tenure represents the beginnings of a post-Constitutional era, where the chief law enforcement officer of the United States serves to dismantle legal traditions. Holder is the first attorney general to whom law seemed to be an option, a suggestion on the way to a progressive future. Most folks, and most lawyers, who didn’t devote daily attention to him might not have noticed the ground shifting during his tenure. But shift it did, and very deliberately.

Law, like liberty, is a tenuous thing. Failing to understand the sources of domestic tranquility, the sources of your relatively good life, usually also means failing to recognize the threats to that pleasant tranquility. Holder used his time at Justice to do things that corrode the rule of law. Law and liberty are precious things, and Holder did enormous damage to both.

This is an interesting critique, but it's incredibly partisan. It was written by a guy who objects with progressive views on race, on voting, on abortion. If you don't like all those things, then of course you're going to consider Holder to be a terrible attorney general. But you're also going to consider ANY progressive attorney general to be terrible, and you're going to dislike any member of of a Democratic administration.

I think his main objection was the politicization of the civil rights division of the DOJ, where he used to work. Holder turned that part of the DOJ into a pac. But yeah, its partisan and biased, that's what we do here Tim

 

[tommyGunZ]

My recollection of the Gitmo issue is this: back when Obama ran for President in 2008, he promised his more liberal supporters that he was going to get rid of it, and treat the terrorists languishing there as common criminals. This was a big deal to a lot of people who were (and still are) upset at the government's continuing encroachment upon civil liberties ever since 9/11. Many of these same people accused George W. Bush of committing war crimes.

Holder, who appears to be IMO somewhat of a liberal idealist, was obviously the point man for the administration on this issue. I do believe that it was Obama's intent to close Gitmo down. I think the State Department and the military talked him out of it, and that Holder was forced to take most of the blame for his boss changing his mind.

Holder spent nearly a year working on a plan with a team of lawyers to make it happen. His planned lacked so many basic considerations of law and logic that it was universally criticized. It had nothing to do with providing Obama political cover for a broken campaign promise. Holder's incompetence and inability to produce a workable plan was absolutely the reason for the effort to fail. I am not sure how you can spin it any other way.

Really?

In that case, I challenge you, jon, to come up with a competent way to close down Gitmo and try everyone there under the US civil courts system. According to you, there is one, and Holder was just too incompetent to figure it out. So you come up with one, please.

Obama said that HE was going to do it....was he lying or just talking out of his ### when he said it.

This is always great shtick. Blaming Obama for things he can't get done because Republicans block it.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

from a guy that used to work for Holder at DOJ;

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/09/25/goodbye-eric-and-goodridance/?singlepage=true

What can be said about Eric Holder’s six years as attorney general that PJ Media hasn’t already said? The news that Holder is going to resign should be bittersweet to anyone who cares about racial equality and the rule of law. The damage he has already done to the country leaves a turbulent wake that is ill-matched to the financial reward awaiting him at a shameless and large Washington, D.C., law firm.

Our country is more polarized and more racially divided because of Eric Holder. He turned the power of the Justice Department into a racially motivated turnout machine for the Democratic Party. That was his job in this administration, and he did it well.


When I first reported on the racially motivated law enforcement of Holder’s Justice Department, it seemed fanciful to some. But after six years of Holder hugging Al Sharpton, stoking racial division in places like Florida and Ferguson, after suing police and fire departments to impose racial hiring requirements, after refusing to enforce election laws that protect white victims or require voter rolls to be cleaned, after launching harassing litigation against peaceful pro-life protesters, after incident after incident of dishonesty and contempt before Congress — after all this, it was clear to anyone with any intellectual honesty that this man had a vision of the law at odds with the nation’s traditions.

Why would it surprise anyone he behaved as he did? As I made clear in my book Injustice, he carried around a quote in his wallet for 40 years about race that, he explained to the Washington Post, indicated that he had common cause with the black criminal. That’s a fact. That’s who he is.

And few in the House knew how to hold him accountable. Some who did are Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep Frank Wolf (R-Va), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Rep. Daryl Issa (R-CA). Unfortunately, too many others failed to understand what they were up against.

Eric Holder was a radical progressive who used the power of the federal government to impose his progressivism on the United States. He loved big interventionist government that took sides based on your politics and your race. He was a menace to the rule of law.

So he exits. But instead of being shamed into obscurity as he ought to be, he will cash in. He’ll abandon the tools of dividing Americans between black and white and worry about a new color: gold. When Holder lands at a big and shameless lawfirm in Washington, D.C., it will say as much about the country in 2014 as Holder’s rancid tenure said about the modern Democratic Party.

That someone like Eric Holder can find a lucrative career in this town, and be feted at all the right cocktail parties, says a great deal about what we have lost as a nation. In another era, a man like Holder, unmoored from the law and the truth would not have a future. Instead, I suspect Holder has a very bright one.

Those of you clamoring for “indictments” or “prosecution” of the man can give up. It isn’t going to happen. Nothing is going to happen to him, except that he will move on to a job that even most “1 percenters” wouldn’t recognize.

Holder’s tenure represents the beginnings of a post-Constitutional era, where the chief law enforcement officer of the United States serves to dismantle legal traditions. Holder is the first attorney general to whom law seemed to be an option, a suggestion on the way to a progressive future. Most folks, and most lawyers, who didn’t devote daily attention to him might not have noticed the ground shifting during his tenure. But shift it did, and very deliberately.

Law, like liberty, is a tenuous thing. Failing to understand the sources of domestic tranquility, the sources of your relatively good life, usually also means failing to recognize the threats to that pleasant tranquility. Holder used his time at Justice to do things that corrode the rule of law. Law and liberty are precious things, and Holder did enormous damage to both.

This is an interesting critique, but it's incredibly partisan. It was written by a guy who objects with progressive views on race, on voting, on abortion. If you don't like all those things, then of course you're going to consider Holder to be a terrible attorney general. But you're also going to consider ANY progressive attorney general to be terrible, and you're going to dislike any member of of a Democratic administration.

I think his main objection was the politicization of the civil rights division of the DOJ, where he used to work. Holder turned that part of the DOJ into a pac. But yeah, its partisan and biased, that's what we do here Tim

That is his objection, but he's ignoring the history of the politicization of that office in the other direction in the 8 years previous. When Bush took office, the work of the civil rights division changed drastically. They stopped aggressively pursuing Title VII and Voting Rights cases and started aggressively pursuing "viewpoint discrimination" cases. Many liberal career civil rights attorneys were eased out of the office (for instance, my Criminal Law professor). This is to say nothing of the documented practice of refusing to hire liberal candidates for career DOJ positions, which is a violation of the law. Monica Goodling confirmed that practice in her testimony.

The division didn't investigate the rather pervasive reports of voter intimidation in Florida in 2000 (off-duty police officers and armed private security were reported to have intimidated minority voters). Instead, in 2006, in the first voter intimidation case that the division took since Bush took office, they went after a black guy.

As this case progressed in 2009, I have no doubt that certain civil rights division attorneys expressed the opinion that they weren't in that division to prosecute this type of voter intimidation case against minorities, considering the history of the department ignoring similar cases where the intimidation targeted minorities. And I'm sure to some career (mostly Republican) attorneys, this felt like further "politicizing" the office. But I can also say that even a Republican member of the Civil Rights Commission investigating this incident (one who initially called for investigation) has now publicly said that it's a non-issue because the incident was no different than many other incidents that the civil rights division had not pursued in the past.

None of which is to say that it's wrong for people to object to that decision. But they should acknowledge that it is a political objection and not one based on any coherent theory of corruption or illegality.