The more I hear about this guy , the less I like !!

Bad choice to be sure !!

I don’t expect PEBO to alter any of his choices despite objections from the DFH extremists (that’s us!) He has a plan and goshdarnit, he’s smarter than all of us. /s

Yet, he seems to alter his position with the slightest hint of criticism from the right.

Loosehead!

It has always been my position that all of Bam’s appointees should be given an opportunity and the cabinet & administration as a whole should be given an opportunity to show what they got. As far as Holder goes, dan Savage says it best: DTMFA.

a top official of a law enforcement agency who participated in Holder’s meetings told ESPN.com.

I’m no fan of Holder, but should why should we believe
a Republican (presumably) about this, or anything?
LHP has given us many good reasons for opposing Holder,
but the disloyal opposition (yes, you, Arlen) is clearly
lining up to derail POB’s presidency over Holder’s nomination.

Holder could prove to be a major distraction !

Critics on the left and right will have a field day with this guy !

but the disloyal opposition (yes, you, Arlen) is clearly
lining up to derail POB’s presidency over Holder’s nomination.

True. So dump him. I don’t see that this guy is worth going to the mat over.

The Holder choice is arguably the least politically astute thing Obama could have done.

Setting aside the other problems Holder has, if I were to tell you that the next Democrat who gains the Oval would appoint the DOJ point-man on the Mark Rich pardon to AG, you would have called the guys in the white coats.

What a bonehead play. This is a magnet for a shitstorm.

The NFL is a bunch of stinking Republicans. That said, I don’t like Holder’s Chiquita embrolio. He was on the wrong side of the equation. There should be dozens of good picks besides Holder. One less Clinton Retread wouldn’t hurt either.

holder has to realize this and withdraw. bama can find another spot for him.

Excellent Point. That is exactly correct.

Mr. Obama, why are you squandering political capital on this guy?

Am I the only person who thinks a position for Holder might have been part of the price paid to get Hillary to drop?

Boxturtle (She’d REALLY want one of her own in Justice)

Bill Clinton was a big Chiquita banana too. Our government under Clinton enabled Chiquita to crush its competition. Carribean Island banana growers lost their livelihoods because of Clinton policies. Is it a coincidence that Holder who worked for Clinton also represented the murderous Chiquita?

Obama isn’t about fixing the country but in delivering it back into the hands of its traditional elites. The idea that Holder will reform, depoliticize, and revitalize Justice is about as likely as Summers and Geithner solving the problems of the economy. Obama thinks he picked a bunch of people who know what they are doing, but what they knew how to do is what got us into this mess.

Who could/would argue against Specter’s tailor-made opposition to this awful choice?

“Here’s an early and laudable victory, Arlen.”

And I will be rooting for Specter to just cream this guy. If Team Obama gets clobbered, they have it coming.
Lani Guinier, Zoe Baird, and Kimba Wood have some company. What is it with Dems and DOJ’s upper tier, anyway?

In your opinion, are these traditional elites considerably different from Bushco elites?

Specter’s a creep, but I agree that Holder sucks.

NO CHIT! to THAT comment!

Obamas reaction or lack of reaction can add to our understanding about the next four years. So far he seems unbending in his actions, such as his stance on FISA and Telcon immunity. So either Obama plays to the politics of the situation or he’s so sure of his positions (stubborn) that maybe his bringing in opposing viewpoints are an attempt to quite critics and a sham.

That said, why isn’t January 20 here yet!

It’s the difference between a Jim Baker and a Dick Cheney. As I have written before, the traditional Establishment agrees basically with Bush’s ideas, they just think he may have gone too far in some cases and poorly executed in others. And they were also distressed that Bush didn’t pick as many of them as they would have liked to fill positions in his Administration. So mostly it is a matter of degree not substance that separates them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, and peaceful solstice to everyone.

Hold on for the ride because Holder is going to prove to be more than just a distraction.
Remember Ron Brown? The other side absolutely hates it when someone of the brown persuasion draws a paycheck for anything but welfare, so this is going to be good.

I’m with you lhp, let this guy sink back into the muck from whence he came but Hugh’s point is quite valid. Obama was chosen just like Carter was chosen back in ‘75 by some group in the background wanting to bring the old elites back into control so the whole system wouldn’t be derailed. Just like FDR grabbed hold and righted the capitalist system before those pesky workers could solidify themselves and topple the system that was standing on their necks.

So, too, Obama. Capitalism needs a savior before the people who’ve been voting against their own class interests for the past 40 years wake up and realize their mistake.

But as long as Big Pharma continues pushing the zoloft, paxil, and other drugs no one will care either way.

You said it before, lhp: Holder doesn’t like the rules, so he ignores them.
Not someone I want as AG, or in any position with authority over others.

I think that the Toussie pardon fiasco will actually deflate the efforts of Arlen Spector and Shelby’s efforts to derail the Holder nomination. If they open up the issue of the Rich pardon it will mean that a more complete investigation of the Toussie pardon will have to occur. It won’t be buried. And that could mean that the involvement of either Republican Senators or Representatives who pushed the nomination through other channels will be exposed. It might also mean that current or former Administration officials will be involved.

This is a can of worms that would hardly be beneficial to holding on to the razor-thin filibuster.

Easy solution, pinch hit Holder with Senator Mitchell.
MLB 1, NFL 0.

i would go even further to say that imo obama’s “unity” thing has nothing to do with us - it’s about bringing together factions of the establishment elite that were starting to show some signs of potential fracture in response to bushco’s extremism. something like that happened in response to nixon’s extremism - and as a result a lot of what is normally unseen by non-elites was brought to light (see church commission). hope i’m wrong, but i suspect obama’s promise of unity is a promise something similar will not be allowed to happen this time.

.. also, from glenn’s update on wednesday’’s post seems appropriate to your comment: Torture ambivalence masquerading as moral and intellectual superiority

Back then, Stoller specifically said this about Drezner: “The problem as I see it is the essential unwillingness of someone like Drezner to admit what he knows is true - Iraq is an attempt at empire perpetrated by deeply illiberal individuals.”
In reply, Drezner wrote — and, remember, this was in June, 2004: more than four years ago:

Oh, please — an empire that sent in fewer troops than was necessary? An administration that now seems hell-bent on getting out of the country? Where’s your evidence for empire?

“Hell-bent on getting out of the country”: that’s from a self-styled expert in international affairs in 2004. This is why I’ve become increasingly resistant to the notion that the abuses and destruction of the last eight years should be blamed exclusively on the Bush administration. It’s undoubtedly true they are culpable in all of it, but — as several commenters here pointed out — most of what the administration did was, with some notable exceptions, either actively cheered on or implicitly justified via this type of obsequious apologetics by our elite institutions: Congress, the media, academia, etc. As demonstrated by the collective attempt now to prettify the “pure-at-heart” torture regime and thus relieve these elites of responsibility for it, none of these apologist efforts has abated in the slightest.

i’ve replaced glenn’s bolds with my own for emphasis.

With Chimpy out of office, there will be little to actually investigate. And if I were Specter, I would welcome the Dems spinning their wheels on it. The Republicans show no fear, as they assume (rightly so) their message machine can and will massage the issue into so much wispy fluff. And they are fearless, particularly when in the minority.

But in the abstract, I still ask: why do this ‘in your face’ with yet another high DOJ appointment?

Yes, but I’m wondering which corporations will win or sustain favor and which will be relegated to the back burner. For example, it looks like Halliburton will continue to be able to pick ripe plums with Obama’s promise of an expanded war in Afghanistan. Maybe not so much. Perhaps Dyncorp or some other will do better.

Apparently, there is some concern re: NASA and this terrible issue of fiscal accountability (re: horrendous cost overruns) that Obama seems to be threatening. The NASA guy has been outwardly hostile to any discussion of oversight. (He’s a brilliant guy you know - an autocrat like Jeb Bush. /s)

Perhaps its all a matter of some shifts in allegience and some new corporations will get the opportunity to screw the public more readily, while some of the old boys will have to wait their turn again. It seems to me that the citizenry will need some jobs and income so it can play its role as willing Patsy.

The whole reason for the Toussie unpardoning was so that TradMed could re-tell the Marc Rick out-of-order pardon process story. Conveniently, this sets the table for the Holder hearings.

Holder should withdraw. Now that sports are in the mix, the American people may start paying attention. TradMed too.

Anyone think Reggie Walton might give up the bench to be AG?

yup. he’s going to have to withdraw or “withdraw”.

So because Eric Holder as a private attorney effectively represented the people who contracted his services, namely the NFL and the NFLPA, and did nothing wrong nor illegal this should be a reason for him not to be Attorney General? I can’t figure out if this is more sad or more funny. Don’t get me wrong, there are actual valid reasons to question his fitness for the job, but this is just patently ridiculous. To call it a stretch that any of this information would be used against him during confirmation hearings would be doing an injustice to the word stretch.

central fl came thru on election day. no reason to pretend to give a shit about NASA anymore.

what’s a whispy fluff ?

Shuttle launches stir Patriotism. Recall the timing of space shots with the fourth of July or at times of political expedience (to create a diversion, whip up the citizenry in a patriotic fervor). They were often handy for Dubya. Sometimes concurrent with NASCAR events.

Now that a Democrat has been duly elected, there will be no space shots. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it?

:-)
When the Gooper message machine swings into high gear, their usual tack is to saturate the MSM with a cloud of often differing views on a subject. They flood the waves with widely varying views on issues, kicking up a fog of positions, none of which can ever be grasped whole and attributed to their party’s stance.

This gives them a couple of advantages, among them that the fog is so dense that you can not keep track of who believes what, and also that you can never quite pin which issue lends itself to whose advantage. Hence, the ungraspable position.

ymmv

So far he seems unbending in his actions, such as his stance on FISA and Telcon immunity.

… on which he did a perfect about face.

O getting all squishy on Bush tax cut repeal, too.

Yes, but it was a very steadfast flip flop.

New post upstairs

yup. gotta give credit where due.

You need to read the previous posts on Holder. It’s because he ignores the written rules when they get in the way of the results his client wants.

Eric Holder is ALL ABOUT making sure that Justice is something CONTROLLED by Big People and INFLICTED upon little people.

Little people go fight and die in wars started by Big People.

Big People make the money from the wars that little people have to go die in.

Big People don’t get charged with crimes in Eric Holder’s world; they don’t go to trial and they sure as hell don’t go to jail.

That’s for little people.

I like a lot of the comments here. Looks like folks are beginning to get it about Holder, whom I’ve opposed from the beginning, not because I give a good eff about Marc Rich, but because our democracy demands a strong, independent AG who will stand up for the American people against the boneheaded inclinations of an isolated executive. Let’s face it — Obama, like the rest of us, is human, and we can all be convinced we’re right if enough syncophants tell us we are. Somebody needs to stand up to the Prez. We know it’s not going to be his wife, because she collaborated with him in the Rezko sale/purchase of land adjoining their Chicago home.

I lived thru having to rely on a bunch of right-wing partisans to defend my rights against Clinton’s excesses, and trying to figure out who was right — the Clintons or the wingnuts — wasn’t easy. I’d like a Democratic AG to stand up for me this time around — and Eric Holder ain’t gonna do it.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

Sorry I’m late LHP keep up the fight!