Embattled Attorney General Eric Holder is in full damage control mode. In an attempt to re-shape his image with the press after the highly damaging revelations that he personally signed-off on secret subpoena requests for James Rosen and Fox News over anonymous leaks, The Daily Beast reports that he’s really, really sorry about what he did and he’s now going to make sure neither he nor any other out-of-control AG will ever do it again.
We know all of this because The Daily Beast was the recipient of, get ready for it: Anonymous leaks! The irony is probably lost on the sycophants at The Daily Beast. “Look, Eric sees himself fundamentally as a progressive, not some Torquemada out to silence the press,” says a friend who asked not to be identified.
According to The Daily Beast, Holder, who signed the affidavit that led to the unprecedented subpoena, didn’t really realize how troubling his conduct towards Rosen and Fox News was until he read about it in the Washington Post:
But for Attorney General Eric Holder, the gravity of the situation didn’t fully sink in until Monday morning when he read the Post’s front-page story, sitting at his kitchen table. Quoting from the affidavit, the story detailed how agents had tracked Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department, perused his private emails, and traced the timing of his calls to the State Department security adviser suspected of leaking to him. Then the story, quoting the stark, clinical language of the affidavit, described Rosen as “at the very least … an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” in the crime. Holder knew that Justice would be besieged by the twin leak probes; but, according to aides, he was also beginning to feel a creeping sense of personal remorse.
Again… the “personal remorse” that is meant to make Holder a sympathetic and contrite character is only revealed to the reader through another anonymous leak. This time, in the guise of “according to aides.” Well, sure, I mean, why would an un-named “aide” to the attorney general make this up?
The Daily Beast actually printed the following sub-headline without any irony or skepticism:
How the attorney general feels about his own role in the Fox News case–and how he plans to prevent it from happening again.
The reader is expected to believe that Holder has such deep regrets over his conduct that he is, therefore, the perfect person to fix the problem that, apparently, only began to exist when he became attorney general.
It’s an audacious position and strategy for Holder, but as long as publications like The Daily Beast exist, to re-print exactly the message he wants conveyed, he has no reason to think his rehabilitation plan won’t work.
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