RCP: Eric Holder's Massive Ineptness

[nonniey]

Just to keep Baculus happy, here is another article from his favorite Website:

Eric Holder's Massive Ineptness

By Michael Gerson

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Eric Holder is controversial on the left for preserving much of the Bush administration's legal structure for conducting the war on terror. He is controversial on the right for overturning portions of that structure in ways that seem both clueless and reckless. But Holder is the most endangered member of the Obama Cabinet for a different reason: Just about everything he has touched has backfired.

The list is oddly impressive. First, there was the decision to release Bush-era interrogation memos and reopen the investigation of CIA interrogators after they already had been cleared by career prosecutors. Holder assumed these actions would rally public outrage. Instead, he started a national security debate he has pretty much lost. Seven former CIA directors -- serving under Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 -- sent Holder a letter warning his actions could "help al-Qaeda elude U.S. intelligence and plan future operations." Holder opened a serious, ongoing rift between the Department of Justice and the intelligence community.

Second, there was Holder's repudiation in the matter of John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- the Bush administration lawyers who provided the legal justification for enhanced interrogations. Holder appointees had determined the two lawyers guilty of professional misconduct. But the Justice Department's senior career attorney cleared Yoo and Bybee of the charge, embarrassing Holder in the process..........

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/19/eric_holders_massive_ineptness_104832.html

[Midnight Judges]

LOL @ listening to Bush's speech writer for political advice.

[DRSmith]

If the extreme right and the extreme left are not happy with you, then you are doing a good job.

[December90]

LOL @ listening to Bush's speech writer for political advice.

LOL @ hiring someone with less experience than the pimple face teenage assistant manager at McDonalds at creating jobs to oversee the entire economy. Working great.

[Forehead]

Hey, I just met this guy. He didn't touch me though, so I guess I haven't backfired yet.

[Chachie]

If the extreme right and the extreme left are not happy with you, then you are doing a good job.

Not a bad way to look at things.

[IHOPSkins]

This part of the article needs to be emphasized.....

Fourth, ........Holder has been unable to articulate reasons why some terrorism cases are referred to civilian courts while others are tried in military tribunals.........

Civilian trials for the 9/11 terrorists now seem unlikely anywhere in the United States. But backing down on that commitment will have a cost. "If this stunning reversal comes to pass," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, "President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department.......

Further.....

Privately, administration officials are bracing for the ire of disappointed liberals and even some government lawyers should the administration back away from promises to use civilian courts to adjudicate the cases of some of the 188 detainees who remain at Guantanamo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030405209.html?hpid=topnews

And to review....

.....during the presidential campaign Mr. Obama criticized the commissions, saying that “by any measure our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure,” and declaring that as president he would “reject the Military Commissions Act.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02gitmo.html?_r=4&partner=rss&emc=rss

So we are now in the middle of a wholesale reversal of policy

Holder will be the fall guy....and not totally a scapegoat