HOLD THAT HOLDER?
Posted at 7:52 ET
One item that's getting very little attention is the fact that Mr. Obama's Cabinet nominees will have to be confirmed, and that confirmation hearings can prove embarrassing and testy.
Ken Blackwell, the African-American former Ohio secretary of state, makes a compelling case against Eric Holder, the nominee for attorney general. The attorney general's post is one of the most important, and sensitive, in any administration. Past nominees have ranged from the brilliant - Edward Levi under Ford - to the outrageous - Robert F. Kennedy under JFK - to the mediocre - most of them - to the bizarre - Janet Reno under Clinton.
Holder may fall into several categories at once:
Most of the president-elect’s Cabinet appointments have been praised...
...but even the Washington Post has raised questions about Eric Holder’s nomination as U.S. attorney general.
Eric Holder has had a very impressive career. He graduated from Columbia Law School, served as a city judge in D.C., was a federal prosecutor, and then deputy attorney general under Janet Reno.
But two of his final acts at the Justice Department are simply unpardonable: the infamous pardons of Marc Rich and the FALN terrorists.
Blackwell is correct. These items deserve extreme scrutiny. The Justice Department has a strict process for evaluating possible pardons.
But Holder helped Rich evade that process. Marc Rich, a billionaire, had been indicted of 65 counts of tax evasion and arms-dealing with Iran. He fled to Switzerland, where he lived an extravagant lifestyle. Holder personally worked with Rich’s attorney to get the pardon directly to then-president Clinton. Holder made clear that he did not oppose the pardon, while Rich’s wife was giving over $400,000 to the Clinton Library. She also raised significant money for the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton’s Senate race. President Clinton granted the pardon.
The pardon looked far worse than a bad idea. It looked like corruption. It looked like malfeasance in office — selling out justice for potential personal gain.
Extreme Clintonism. But it gets worse.
As bad as that is, the FALN pardons where worse. Sixteen terrorists of the FALN group were imprisoned for felonies involving bombs, guns, robbery, and sedition. But in 1999, Eric Holder facilitated President Clinton's commuting their sentences.
These were unrepentant terrorists. America is now at war with terror, and yet when we imprisoned over a dozen confirmed terrorists involved in bombings and other terrorist acts, the man who would be our top official against acts of terror helped convince the president of the United States to let them go. Whatever the consequences of that act may have been in 1999, in 2008 it should be political suicide.
But apparently is not.
This nomination might also shed light on the kind of policies Obama will pursue. Despite Obama’s new lip service to the Second Amendment, Holder signed onto a brief earlier this year reaffirming his long-held position that the Second Amendment confers no rights whatsoever to private citizens, and that the Supreme Court should have upheld D.C.’s absolute ban on handguns, even in homes.
And more...
Holder also has far-left views on unrestricted abortion, and opposes the death penalty. And, in a war on terror, Holder believes that all the rights that U.S. citizens have in civilian courts should be extended to foreign terrorists captured abroad.
Hey, just the kind of guy we need right now. Not.
Some Republicans will mount an opposition to the Holder nomination. Regardless, Holder will likely be confirmed. But GOP senators must get him on record on all these issues, and force him to fully explain under oath all of his views and his choices regarding terrorists and pardons.
This is important stuff, and it's not being publicized enough. The left started whining, after Obama picked Hillary for State, that it wasn't getting its ideas into the new administration. Apparently, Obama was listening when he named Eric Holder. Tough questions please. And full answers please.
December 16, 2008. |