Will Holder stay or leave?
[NOTE: Several years ago a great many people were predicting that Obama would ditch Holder because he was too much trouble to the administration. I opined that it would not happen. I was looking at the post again the other day because there’s been similar speculation about Holder and Obama in the light of the Fast and Furious debacle, and I think a good deal of what I said then is still quite relevant. So here’s a repeat.]
In this post’s comment thread there was a discussion of whether President Obama is making some room under that crowded bus for his Attorney General Eric Holder. Jennifer Rubin has written a piece speculating that this might indeed be the case, citing the fact that Rahm Emanuel has gone on record as distancing himself from the controversial decisions made by Holder in the KSM trial and the Christmas bomber interrogations.
In my post on the subject, I wrote “Holder is a proxy for Obama himself.” Commenter “RickZ” responded:
No offense, neo, but every presidential cabinet appointment is a proxy for the President himself, that’s the nature of the beast at these rarefied positions.
So I would like to clarify: by using the word “proxy” in Holder’s case, I meant something different than the usual Cabinet appointee, the usual presidential representative. I could be wrong about this, but my gut senses a close identification between Obama and Holder, an almost-Vulcan-mind-meld between them on the legal issues involved in fighting terrorism. This is not a compliment to either man; I think both are sadly misguided.
Holder serves a purpose for Obama. If there is an issue on which the President is somewhat loathe to express his opinion fully, perhaps because he knows it will be unpopular or controversial, I believe that Obama purposely uses Holder as cover, to draw the opposition’s criticism and deflect it from himself.
Perhaps the proper word for the relationship might be “surrogate” or “mouthpiece.” This is not to say that Holder does not have opinions of his own. I am not claiming he is a puppet. But his opinions are so closely in sync with Obama’s on these issues that for all intents and purposes they are one.
For this reason, I disagree strongly with those who think Holder is about to go. I suppose Obama might sacrifice him if it becomes necessary for strategic reasons (after all, he’s been known to do such a thing). If the decisions they both support because so unpopular Obama feels the need to disassociate himself from Holder and use him as scapegoat, it will happen. But this would only occur in the most extreme of situations, because Obama is so wedded to these views himself, and they are completely integral to his own attitude about the legal status and treatment of terrorists.
Holder is also no ordinary Cabinet appointee for Obama. They have known each other since 2004, the year Obama first achieved a national profile. The two met at “a dinner party hosted by former White House aide Anne Walker Marchange, niece of Clinton friend Vernon Jordan.” Very soon after declaring himself a candidate in early 2007, Obama requested that Holder be part of his campaign, and “Holder served as a legal adviser and strategist and led Obama’s vice presidential search committee.”
Holder is a trusted adviser and member of Obama’s inner circle. It probably doesn’t hurt, either, that Holder is a graduate of Columbia and a former basketball player, much like Obama. But it’s their common attitude towards law that creates the strongest bond between the men. As Holder says, “We are on the same page.”
And I don’t think Obama is eager to turn that page.
It’s certainly possible that Holder served as Obama’s hatchet man, cut-out, human shield. But that was when the buck could be seen stopping with Holder.
Not the case today.
Should I Stay or Should I Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBPu7jJbJU
Jimmy Durante ‘Did You Ever Have the Feeling ‘
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-zmJ1VCQI
Richard Aubrey: I still believe that Obama will only let Holder go if his hand is absolutely forced by circumstance. Holder is someone he completely trusts, IMHO. And there aren’t too many people like that for Obama. There’s really just his wife, Axelrod, and Jarrett, as far as I know.
Since Holder has been the most visible civil rights/voting rights person and the one carrying the banner for Geneva convention issues that appeal to peaceniks, getting rid of Holder would cause some real splits in Obama’ base. Obama will try to wiggle around as much as he can so he doesn’t have to make a decision. Holder is Obama’s street creds.
As a measure of Obama’s disinclination to throw Holder under the bus, consider that Obama pulled Executive Privilege out of the hat just before the House Committee voted on whether to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. This could be seen as an attempt to turn the contempt vote in Holder’s favor.
Holder is Obama’s doppelganger. Unfortunately, Holder’s not hidden. Just the opposite.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/doppelganger-earths-hint-at-a-whole-galaxy-of-trouble-20101002-161xc.html
Obama and Holder: Two parasites living off the American people and orbiting around the black hole of man’s insatiable pride and lust for power.
I agree with this here post.
If Hillary was causing this much trouble, she’d have been hung out to dry, then fed to the wolves, then whatever was left would have been tossed under the bus.
Obama can always play the pardon card. Holder has nothing to worry about. Obama is shameless.
I’m a fat little froggy
with fat little thighs
and a big fat belly
from my throat to my thighs.
I like to sit calmly
viewing the scenery
and slurp suddenly
the lunch before me.
I’m a fat little froggy
with fatty fat thighs.
My belly and my money
float below the pond’s skies.
Alternate ending:
My belly and my money
you see before you dies
There’s also a good ending with the word disguise.
Can anyone tell me why poetry that has absolutely no form, none, is called poetry.
I call bullshit. Poetry is DNA, the coded instruction. How more formulated can DNA be? Hunh? Poetry without rules is like genetic instruction without rules: You get monsters and stillborn. Yech.
Free verse is not poetry. It is musing and may be amusing but it is not poetry. I hate it. Let it go the way of the Commerce Clause and socialism and eubonics and eugenics and slavery and abortion and bring back the dodo because we all love the dodo.
Maybe O trusts Holder. That means he knows Holder won’t do anything O considers unuseful. But that’s not the point.
The point is that when the buck stopped with Holder, it didn’t get to O. Once Holder becomes, as he has, an involuntary conduit instead of a shield, his usefulness–which is not related to his perceived trustworthiness–is over.
Question is, what can he be trusted to do or not do when he’s out on his ear.
I strongly suspect that Holder knows too much to be hung out to t dry.
I don’t think this F&F affair seems very dangerous to Obama yet. The Dem base doesn’t care diddly about it and that’s what Obama’s campaign staff is trying to hold now. To throw Holder under the bus would mean that Obama would be admitting he made an error in appointing him and in keeping him. Obama can’t admit that kind of error.
it must be very very lonely to be Obama. I suspect it is going to get lonlier.
Curtis: Robert Frost said free verse was like playing tennis without a net.
>>> Perhaps the proper word for the relationship might be “surrogate” or “mouthpiece.”
I believe the ACTUAL term you’re seeking here is “two-bit shill”.
Holder puts me in mind of Humphrey Bogart’s in-character observation about Peter Lorre’s character in Casablanca:
“I don’t mind a parasite, but I DO object to a cut-rate one.”
Holder is a tool, and he’s a great mirror for President Downgrade for the simple reason that he’s just as big a piece of cheap, perambulatory scum as The Wun is.
>>> it must be very very lonely to be Obama. I suspect it is going to get lonlier.
He can always rely on the companionship of his closest friend, the bus driver.