Remember the Attorney General who said that we are a nation of cowards?
Attorney General Eric Holder said [in February] that despite advances, the United States remains “a nation of cowards” on issues involving race.
“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards,” Holder said in remarks to his staff in honor of Black History Month. His comments appear on a transcript provided by the Justice Department.
“Even as we fight a war against terrorism; deal with the reality of electing an African-American, for the first time, as the president of the United States; and deal with other significant issues of the day, the need to confront our racial past and to understand our racial present, and to understand the history of African people in this country — that all endures,” the attorney general added.
“Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.”
I could ask what does it mean to "deal with the reality of electing an African-American" as a "significant issue of the day," but I'd better get to the point. I'm sure you don't have much time.
NEWSWEEK has a slobbering piece about AG Holder this week. It begins:
It's the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he'd stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. "I was so struck by [guess what] the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about," he says.
The fireworks this year reminded me too that Barack Obama is presiding, but I still don't care what color he is - never did - and I am gagging on the incessant repetitions of His Blackness. Apparently I somehow miss the significance of this overwhelmingly important fact. Race is not what I meant this post to be about, but when it's Eric Holder you're talking about, there is no avoiding it. He seems consumed by it.
What I wanted you to know is this quote from the NEWSWEEK article:
Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed....
Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right.
"You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort," Holder says. "But the reality of being A.G. is that I'm also part of the president's team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values."
The oath Holder took is nowhere in sight.
"I ____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Holder only acknowledges his "responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws" in passing, as a prelude to but, but, but... it's all about the president.
I just mention this because it scares me. Maybe it's been this way before and I wasn't aware of it, but I am struck by the appearance that Holder supports and defends, bears true faith and allegiance not to the Constitution... but to Obama.
Such is far too much and far too fundamental. I can't imagine that the people who voted for Obama less than a year ago wanted the Constitution to take a back seat to a man, any man, passing through as president. But then maybe this one's not just passing through.
By the way - and not surprisingly - the bulk of the slobbering article is about Holder's intent to throw red meat to the Far Left -- that is, to "probe Bush-era torture."
You might "enjoy" reading it -- there's a lot of behind-the-scenes-at-the-White-House gossip from anonymous sources. (Did you know Holder's wife is the OB-Gyn who delivered one of Rahm Emanuel's children? Not mentioned of course is the fact that she was a "Malcolm X Scholar" at Columbia University. But in a country where Jeremiah Wright didn't bother anyone, I doubt Malcolm X would either.)
Just one more quote, and I'll give this up for now.
.... After the prospect of torture investigations seemed to lose momentum in April, the attorney general and his aides turned to other pressing issues. They were preoccupied with Gitmo, developing a hugely complex new set of detention and prosecution policies, and putting out the daily fires that go along with running a 110,000-person department.
"Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens."
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