Politico: AG Holder Now Untouchable

Politico has declared embattled Attorney General Eric Holder untouchable after the many scandals, lapses, overreaches, and contempt charges have failed to induce the President to fire him.

After noting that politicians have been calling for his ouster for years, Politico says that “after years of trying to get Holder, the attorney general doesn’t seem at all worried” that he’ll be fired from his position as chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America.

Quoting only Holder’s friends on the direct question of the AG’s current status; presenting Holder as but a fall guy for Republicans to beat up on because they can’t attack the President directly; and saying that the GOP has no “discipline” and has repeatedly made claims that were “overblown or just plain goofy,” Politico says that he’ll be able to hold his job for as long as he wants to be there and with the President’s full support.

But while Politico tries to paint Holder’s tenure as beset by mere political attacks, and even as it plays it down, the Washington newser does point out some of Holder’s misdeeds in office.

Politico points out that Holder is the first AG in history to be held in contempt of Congress for flat out refusing to supply records on the murderous gun-running scandal known as Fast & Furious. It also notes that he was one of the first Obama administration officials to come out forcefully in favor of gun bans, and early in his tenure called the US a “nation of cowards” on race issues.

What Politico doesn’t mention is the overtly politicized manner in which Holder has run his office. From refusing to prosecute real examples of voter intimidation–because it was the Black Panthers that was doing the intimidating–to hiring extremist, left-wing activists to serve in his DOJ Voting Section, to his refusal to obey Congress during Fast & Furious, to his using intimidation to try and stop states from implementing voter ID laws, all the way to his overbroad use of powers to snoop on the phone calls of journalists, Holder has used his office to further Obama’s political aims instead of to assure compliance with the nation’s laws.

That President Obama refuses to fire him and stubbornly stands by Holder despite all his actions is not evidence that Holder is innocent as Politico claims but merely evidence that Obama has no sense of shame.