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Lugar, Voinovich Go Soft on Eric Holder

By: Robert Bluey (Diary)  |  December 16th, 2008 at 05:56 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

President-elect Barack Obama doesn’t take office until Jan. 20, but his liberal allies on Capitol Hill want to move quickly on the nomination of Attorney General designee Eric Holder. There’s good reason. The more time conservatives have to dig into Holder’s past, the more dirt they’re likely to find.

Legal Times reports today that “Republicans have fastened to Holder as their best chance to politically weaken and extract concessions from a future member of President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet.” Three GOP senators — Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) — have raised questions about Holder’s nomination. And Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has resisted Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy’s plan to hold a hearing before Obama is inaugurated.

Leahy was forced to delay the hearing from Jan. 8 to sometime during the week of Jan. 15 when Republican senators signed a letter warning him that there would be consequences for not allowing sufficient time to vet Holder.

Two Republicans chose not to sign that letter: Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Now is not the time to go soft. Given the narrow margin in the Senate, the loss of Lugar and Voinovich would doom any attempt by the GOP to slow down Holder’s confirmation. (Neither senator’s office returned a request for comment.)

Both senators have a history of thwarting conservatives in the past. When he was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Lugar attempted to bring the Law of the Sea Treaty to a vote. Voinovich, meanwhile, was the obstacle that prevented John Bolton’s confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Holder’s partisan political background, combined with his anti-Second Amendment views and work on Bill Clinton’s questionable pardons, requires a thorough examination. Is it too much to ask of Lugar and Voinovich to sign a letter requesting that Republicans be given sufficient time to question Holder and prepare for his hearing?

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COMMENTS

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  • Kowalski

    Holder should not be the AG nominee and there is a broad consensus that he’s one of Obama’s worst picks to fill his cabinet, not just from people on the right, and not just from people who are 2nd Amendment activists, but from places like the New York Times as well, based on his involvement in the pardoning of Marc Rich.

    WHEN President Bill Clinton pardoned a billionaire fugitive from justice on his last day in office, even usually loyal Democrats were dismayed.
    …
    The story of how the fugitive came to be pardoned by President Clinton was the subject of a painstaking study by the House Government Reform Committee. While the committee?s report is the subject of some controversy ? its Republican chairman, Dan Burton of Indiana, was accused of partisanship ? the staff that compiled the documentation was thoroughly professional.
    …
    [Mr. Holder] …had the last word at Justice on clemency petitions and he saw to it that he had the only word. He brokered one of the most unjustifiable pardons that an American president has ever granted.

    His views on the 2nd Amendment as a cosignatory of the Janet Reno brief in DC vs. Heller coupled with his already tainted past should have made Holder as radioactive as Bernie Kerick was.

    In fact, the broad consensus of negative opinion on him should make him even more inadvisable as a choice. He’s not just a gun-grabber, he’s also a man who conspicuously flouted more than two centuries of American legal tradition in assisting the pardon of a fugitive:

    The precedent against pardons for fugitives was set more than 200 years ago by President John Adams. The charge, brought in 1799, was murder on the high seas against a ship?s captain who was clearly trying to put down a mutiny. But the mutineers made it back to the States, ready to testify against the captain, while his supporters were still at sea. The captain was afraid to return. Asked to approve a nolle prosequi (a notice that prosecution won?t be pursued, a procedure then treated as part of the pardon power), the president consulted his cabinet, which concluded that a trial should come first and a pardon, if justified, after that. Clemency, wrote Secretary of War James McHenry, should be exercised only with ?great caution and on the fullest information.

    In other words, it’s not too much to ask, and in fact we should demand that Obama not appoint him, in bipartisan agreement, for once.

  • Jaded

    What is it about our party that they watch the nastiness of Democrats during 8 years of President Bush on EVERY issue and yet they kowtow to them when they could make their voices heard….anybody got an answer to that? anybody?

    Freakin little pisswillies anger me greatly!

    • AceInTX

      NT!

    • Achance

      Republican candidates, officeholders, and appointees tend to come out of business and civic/business organizations, e.g., Rotary, Chamber, etc. They are almost to a man and woman the “hail fellow, well met” back slapper sort of person who is compelled to get along with people. Most cannot stand even a hint of controversy and their inclination is to either step in to “do something” to make the controversy stop or to run like Hell. The only exception I’ve run across is the occasional lawyer who seeks office as a Republican and even they aren’t as agressive as their Democrat counterparts.

      Democrats on the other hand come out of unions, non-profits, public interest law firms or the defense/plaintiffs bar and are almost universally nasty, agressive people at heart. Oh, they can dress up and be nice when there’s a camera around but as soon as the cameras and mikes are gone, the F-bombs start flying. Blago’s transcripts are pretty typical, yet he, like most of them, can come off like an altar boy. I suspect that BHO can be pretty colorful when he’s in his own element, just comes with the territory. I cut my political teeth on the Union/Democrat side of the ditch and in a closed room, I assure you I can make a sailor blush and have no reticence about it when it helps to make a “point.”

      Frankly, a lot of them, especially the union reps and lawyers, really like contoversy and like the faking it game that they play so well; always being the altar boy in public and being the thug behind closed doors.

  • Mark Malcolm

    Lugar and Voinovich are excellent reasons why term limits would be good for senators. I’m willing to wager conservatives are easier to get elected in a legacy manner than liberals. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

    Oh, and Jaded, we get stuck with these clowns because to many of us are willing to vote for the ‘lesser of evils’ rather than accepting a certain amount of pain and voting them out of office when they forget who they represent and ‘reach across the isle’.

    • NightTwister

      and vote the bums out if you don’t want them.

      You get the government you deserve (as a community), it’s that simple.

      • Jaded

        We end up with the government WE don’t deserve!

        • mbecker908

          Conservatives have done exactly nothing at the national level to put together a concise program to address the size and scope of government. They won’t even confront the elected members of the Republican Party on ANY issue, let alone take on the Dems.

          Until we man-up and start playing the game for keeps this is what we will get.

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            We’ve assumed the party is rightfully ours and if we’d just show up, we’d get everything handed to us.

            So we allowed ourselves the luxury of voting third party and all that jazz, assuming if the party lost that they’d get *our* message and go *our* way.

            It hasn’t worked. It won’t ever work. it’s time we buckle down, work within the system instead of moaning about it, and follow the Reagan plan.

            The ‘establishment’ we’re against today is far to the right of the party Reagan fought. He did the heavy lifting. Let’s pick up where he left off.

          • AceInTX

            But I do…

            I’m still waiting to hear someone tell us what we do if we give the Lugars and the Voiniviches everything they want and allow them to believe they can do anything they please to us and still command our loyalty.

            I understand your argument and I’m persuaded to a certain extend…I’ll admit I’m pulled both directions on this issue and I’m sure somewhere along you will come to that line you will not cross…the only difference between us is that I used to think as you do but I’ve reached my line…how long will it be before you reach yours?

            Reagan said:

            If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace–and you can have it in the next second–surrender.

            Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face–that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand–the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he would rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin–just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all.

            You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

            I know this part of “A Time for Choosing” is addressing the cold war and the Democrats wish to appease or surrender to the Soviet Union…but to my mind this speaks as equally to the problem Conservatives have with appeasing the establishment in the Republican Party and the Surrender that they always demand and have always gotten just like they did this year with McCain. This is why we’re dealing with our own leadership appeasing the Democrats and going along with the wholesale socialization of our country. 2008 has brought me to that “price the we won’t pay” and line “beyond which they must not advance”

            Finally, I really don’t see how you figure this establishment as any less liberal today as they were back when Reagan was president and had to fight them tooth and nail because of the same people like Lugar and Voinovich! Look at how they are selling us doewn the river by appeasing the Democrats and buying into the wholesale rush to socialize the economy in the midst of the bailout feaver that has them in a trance!

          • AceInTX

            time for a spine infusion in Washington starting with the RNC and the only way we get that is to start now working at your local Republican Headquarters…start volunteering to take out the trash if you must to get in…and keep working…attend every convention at each level you can…learn who the squishes are and learn who the Conservative reformers are and support the Conservative reformers in any way you can.

          • ZootSuit

            I do not blame politicians, even so-called conservative politicians, for being spineless. It’s in their DNA. Politicians get to be politicians by pleasing people; as conservatives the best we can hope for is that they will want to please us conservatives.

            The real problem is that we conservative “rank-and-file” do not hold the so-called conservative politicians’ feet to the proverbial fire when start behaving, acting and liberally. And until we do, until the conservative “rank-and-file” gets the backbone to punish so-called conservative politicians who act, speak, vote, and govern like liberals (most often, all the while calling the liberalism “(compassionate) conservative”), then we will get spineless so-called conservatives leaders who constantly cave in to liberalism.

          • AceInTX

            but at this particular time I think that night be an oxymoron…I’m talking about party.

            We need to first infuse the Party with a backbone and new conservative blood. Then we need to work through the system on the local levels and through the Convention process to put conservatives in positions of power and leadership. Then we need Conservatives in leadership who are more interested in achieving conservative goals that reaching across the isle and appeasing the Democrats to enforce Party discipline .

          • ZootSuit

            EVERY politician will at least occassionally stray from principle. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee (that is, if you think he even has principles in the first place). Even Fred Thompson, Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal, and, yes, even Sarah Palin; there will be times when any one of them would stray from conservative principles. For better or worse, that is the nature of politics and of politicians, conservative or not.

            But the thing is, we, the conservative “rank-and-file,” must confront conservatives in leadership when they stray from conservative principles. Or problem, both as conseravtives and as a nation, is that for at least the last eight years, we have not confronted them when they have strayed.

          • AceInTX

            get on the current leaders back and don’t get off…while we work to install new leadership that is truely conservative and stay on THEIR backs to make sure they don’t stray from the fold!

          • ZootSuit

            Let make sure our candidates are conservates from A(ceInTX) to Z(ootSuit)!

            {Yeah, it’s kinda silly but I just wanted to write that.)

          • Aaron Gardner

            and it should just be a formatting button that we push right be fore we post the comment…;^)

          • AceInTX

            Alley Oop

          • AceInTX

            Thumbs Up

          • baseketball

            Not only “would” they stray, they all already have. But it’s an issue of scale. Sure, Sarah Palin put a windfall profits tax on the oil companies in Alaska, but if you compare her record to Obama’s, or even McCain’s in terms of conservative credentials, it’s not really a contest.

          • ZootSuit

            That is precisely our problem and we “conservatives” deserve the government we have. The simple fact of the matter is that the conservative “rank-and-file” does not fight for conservative principles nor hold supposedly conservative elected officials accountable when they act, vote and govern like liberals.

            As someone whose first posts on RedState all seemed to say, “I do not like John McCain …” I am still amazed that we all want to blame him for everything while exonerating and even praising other Republicans who are even worse. Truth be known, if President Bush and the Republicans in Congress (especially when under Bill Frist and Tom Delay) had governed like conservatives, our country and our party would have been VASTLY better off. But the sad fact of the matter is, even now few of us seem t o have the guts to say that.

        • NightTwister

          Enough people keep voting them in. If enough people in that district decide they want something different, there’s a simple solution. There’s a lot of places in the world that don’t even have that opportunity.

    • mbecker908

      It is nothing but mental masturbation. What part of “IT REQUIRES A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT” don’t you get. In order to do that you need 2/3 of the Members of the House and 2/3 of Members of the Senate to approve it. Then you need 3/4 of the State Legislatures to approve it.

      Zip up and go find a new bloggy horse.

      • Mark Malcolm

        But I will as you suggest earlier ‘man up’. I agree the 2/3 to get it approved is a flight of fancy right now. However, our (national conservatives) problem is the lack of a backbone. You yourself made the most cogent point above when you point out the Republican leadership has done nothing, nothing at all to defend conservative principals. Instead they keep ‘reaching across the isle’ and run moderates because ‘we’ve got to be a big tent’. I’m sick and tired of ‘compassionate conservatism’ from those who don’t support conservatism unless it’s their own election time.

        The term limits thing is/was just go wake someone up. Lets vote the bums out, though that seems not to happen more often than not.

        • mbecker908

          is that so-called “solution” to modern day political problems, and I would include and solution that requires a constitutional amendment: term limits, direct election of Senators, HLA, FMA to name a few, is a total waste of time, effort and resources. There is no way on God’s earth that the constitution gets amended to “solve” any of these types of problems.

          Political problems require political solutions. That means that the problem and a solution have to be concisely and briefly defined in single syllable words. An action plan must be developed to achieve the solution, and that plan will likely be an incremental plan that takes a number of years to complete. We need to find leaders with backbone who recognize that we are in a fight for the soul of the nation and the Democrats are not simply “good, patriotic Americans who see a different solution”, they are the enemy.

          We have limited resources. We can’t afford to be wasting them on flights of fantasy.

          • liberalrepublican

            “the Democrats are not simply ?good, patriotic Americans who see a different solution?, they are the enemy.”

            Or just hate huge portions of it?

            Talk about Anti-American.

          • Moe Lane

            Provided that you figure out the difference between yelling at what you want the other person is saying, and what he or she is actually saying.

          • mbecker908

            Geez. Please, not on MY account, Happy Bunny and I are more than willing to engage him. ;-)

          • Moe Lane

            I’ve unbanned the account.

          • mbecker908

            Well, actually, Franz is the Prince. But you’re a heck of a guy anyway.

          • Aaron Gardner

            If I remember correctly my first reply ever to liberalrepublican was that he was really neither a liberal, in the classical sense, nor a republican. I think my moby radar was highly tuned that day…;^)

          • mbecker908

            And I see you’re still a spineless tool of the Dems and a loser. You really should hang out at the RMSP. Bring some good cheese though, they’ve got great whine.

          • AceInTX

            nt*

          • Mark Malcolm

            thought I don’t think I’ll cosign on the blanket statement of all Dems as the enemy. Liberals, yes. All Dems, no.

          • mbecker908

            And it’s the far left agenda. And Democrats are advancing it. The Blue Dogs are just as responsible for it as Barney Frank, they just aren’t as honest about it as Barney.

            Frankly, I’ve got significantly more respect for Frank and the Lefty Crazies than I do for the Jim Webb types. Frank etal are open and honest about where they’re going and why. Webb etal are simply fools and tools. And every bit the enemy as Bill Ayers.

          • Mark Malcolm

            we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I’m with you in opposing all of them but from different ideological ground. A subtle difference, I think, but one I’ll have to make. Good hunting though.

          • AceInTX

            If Conservative Democrats want to help Republicans then be Republicans…if Liberal Republicans want to help Democrats…then be Democrats…

            Let’s have some truth in advertising…because when Republicans get in office they can never get anything done because of Liberal Republicans cutting them off at the knees and ruining our credibility with the electorate. All the while Blue dog Democrats talk the talk but when it comes down to brass tacks…they vote the Democrat Party Line!

            That’s how we always lose…Dems have party discipline and their moderates can be counted on to stay on the reservation in a pinch…with Republicans it’s just the opposite…we can count on our moderates to leave the reservation as they thumb their noses at us to rub it in!

          • DRP

            Not the least because many, many people may be conservative in general but liberal on a few issues, or vice versa. If you’re someone who, say, believes in some form of immigration amnesty/gay rights and is pro-life/small government, which party do you pick? It’s as likely to be a matter of party affiliation when you were growing up as anything else.

            One of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of a two party system is divergence of opinion. It’s prevalent in both parties simply because of the way our government is set up, and is far more common than in the Parliamentary system of government most other countries use (although it’s pretty common even there).

          • Moe Lane

            …Republican, of course. I can get a working compromise on both immigration and gay marriage; but the Democrats merely pretend to be pro-life, and do not pretend to be small government at all.

          • DRP

            And I just picked policy positions out of a hat. The pro-life/pro-choice one is probably more radioactive in picking which party than it should have been for the example; replace it with “strong national defense” and the choice is much murkier.

            The larger point – that there are fewer true hardline Republicans/Democrats than there are people with opinions that don’t slot into partyline votes – still stands, I think.

          • AceInTX

            still stands, I think.

            Democrats enforce party line votes…Republicans do not and our moderates revel in rubbing our noses in the crap they dish here the Dems don’t dare stray let alone stray while ridiculing the Party!

          • Mark Malcolm

            and the Republicans fail to hold their people to any standard, for the most part. You can buck the Republican line all you want and never, or rarely, have anything happen to you. But with the Dems, you better be on point or else! Look what they did to Lieberman and he only disagreed on one issue, the war.

          • AceInTX

            What you say is true and it is a dilemma but I can’t think of anything some of these morons agree with us on…particularly Voinovich!

            We should expect some modicum of Republican Principle from these guys!

          • AceInTX

            and even if we don’t ever get it…the fight’s worth having…if nothing else we’ll re energize the Perot voters who swung to us in 1994 if we campaign on it and a balanced budget amendment…and here’s another idea to throw in the mix…and amendment to stop direct payments from government to private corporations!

          • AceInTX

            Of course that means we have to have leaders who will champion it which we don’t have now…the push has to come from us on the grass roots…once the politicians see it’s a winner for them they’ll jump on the bandwagon even if they never intend to vote for it…and we’ll have advance conservatism in the process by having the fight!

    • zuiko

      I also don’t have much interest in throwing out the good guys along with the bad. Term limits are pointless. If you want to fix the Senate through constitutional amendments that will never pass, repeal the 17th.

      • 1SGinTN

        Educating the electorate will get us further than a term limit amendment or a repeal of the 17th Amendment(as nice as that would be towards a return to Federalism). The education mission is a pretty daunting task, though.

        • mbecker908

          and I don’t want to extend the non-debate on this subject, so I won’t comment on this further than to note that one unintended consequence of term limits would probably be a massive extension of K-Street. After all, I seriously doubt if most of the idiots in Congress could actually hold down a real job, so they’d become lobbyiests.

          • 1SGinTN

            since the law concerning term limits might only address ‘consecutive’ terms. Unintended consequences squared. The more law gets made, the more consequences multiply. Let’s just keep it simple, eh?

          • zuiko

            n/t

          • RetNAV

            I have always suspected that staffers in legislatures are the real “power” behind the throne.

            So, we term out legislators every few terms and some fresh, new face comes onboard, barely knowing how to get from the Chambers to the office, and what do they do? Hire the staffers who have been there and know the ins and out. So, we don’t get an elected legislator making law, we get experienced staffers pulling the ropes.

            Just my speculation on how things work in term limit legislatures.

          • mbecker908

            Actually, my alternative to term limits would be to codify the following (no amendments needed):

            The following would apply to elected officials, House and Senate Members, and all staff above a specified GS level. They would receive no benefits. No medical benefits, no retirement benefits. If they want to buy their own insurance coverage they can, but they cannot participate in the federal employees program. They can fully fund their own 401K or other retirement program, No matching funds.

            With respect to Members, they and all members of their immediate families are barred for life (15 years would work) from employment by any firm doing business with or lobbying the federal government. Nor can they be employed as a lobbyist. If the ban is not for life, it would begin on the day the Member takes office and extend for the designated period after the Member left office.

          • Achance

            Staffers are the real permanent government in legislative bodies and high-level merit system employees are the real permanent government in executive agencies. This is especially true with Republican governments since the Rs tend to elect hail fellow well met types with no government experience and who don’t know where the light switches and rest rooms are in government offices.

            If you want permanent Democrat government, just enact term limits. The staffers wll all lean Democrat because they know Republicans won’t fire them and Democrats will fire them for even thinking Republican thoughts. So, staffs and bureaucracies are “self cleaning” all it takes is a Democrat coming along every so often to get all the Republicans out.

          • mbecker908

            wet dream to create turnover in DC, just above your post?

          • mbecker908

            nt

          • Achance

            for being an elected or appointed official, so I would provide health insurance and all the other benefits. I don’t think any elected or appointed official should be in a defined benefit retirement system unless they were already vested in the system before being elected or appointed, e.g, a merit system employee promoted to appointee.

            The lobbying/employment ban is tougher. Our Ethics Act prohibits you working with anything about which you have knowledge gained from your position but which is not public knowledge. Frankly, the best advantage I have from having had positions in both the Legislative and Executive Branch is the fact that I know people and they know me; my email or call will get answered by somebody who can actually do something, not a kid whose job it is to write stuff that makes it look like somebody cares.

            So, I think a prohibition like ours but maybe a Presidential or gubernatorial term in duration. After a couple of House races go by, you’re barely a memory in a legislative body.

          • mbecker908

            n/t

  • olsmithie

    of Holder’s appointment, in spite of all of the well documented points Kowalski lists above.

    We must bear in mind that compared to the one who is appointing him, Holder looks like a knight on a white horse, that is , it is a matter of perspective.

    When evil looks upon evil it only sees a familiar face, instead of the cause for alarm decent people see.

    There is no way Holder should be AG with his record, but then there is no reason the “one” should be president with his record.

    Regards

    “May you live in interesting times” -Old Chinese Curse

    • Moe Lane

      Every time Holder’s name comes up at a party, you can shut up every smugly annoying netrooter in the room simply by murmuring the words “Chiquita Brands International.”

      • olsmithie

        Indeed!

        Thank you for the 25 Million dollar reminder of Chiquita’s admitted payments to terrorists, that Holder helped them get by with only a slap on the wrist.

        He’ll be a fine head of US law enforcement…

        Thank you Moe, I am smiling again.

        Regards

        • Gekster

          I would like to know more of this. Could you link me up.

          • Gekster

            The complete sentence should be:
            Could you link me up to a web site on this. Just typing with my eyes closed.
            Thanks

          • mbecker908

            An article from the Guardian because the US papers won’t give you much. :-(

          • olsmithie

            http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html

            http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202421950304

            and according to Jason Glasser in mbeckers link, Holder is defending this suit:

            http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/14/chiquita.lawsuit/

            I am certain he is the man to prosecute the terrorists from Guantanamo.. NOT!

            Regards

          • gekster

            I checked out all four links.
            Again, thanks

    • Mike gamecock DeVine

      http://www.redstate.com/bluey/2008/12/16/lugar-voinovich-go-soft-on-eric-holder/#comment-370

  • bk

    I thought it was at the inauguration. How can the Senate hold hearings for people who haven’t been nominated by the President?

    Maybe it’s to make up for not holding hearings for people who HAVE been nominated by the President.

    Unbelievable.

    • Jack_Savage

      Nice one, bk.

    • ajl_mo

      I believe it’s common for hearing to be held for a president-elect’s nominees prior to the president’s inauguration.

      Per http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/04/bush.cabinet/ “Senate panel opens hearing for Bush Cabinet nominee” hearings for GWB’s nominees began as early as January 4, 2001.

      • bk

        It still seems crazy to me. It’s especially annoying after Leahy stiffed so many judicial nominees while putting out these stats about how quickly he was moving them through the pipeline.

        • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

          The executive is *important*, and we can’t afford to have a bunch of top level vacancies for weeks as the Congress dawdles.

          Or worse, rush through a batch of appointments on January 20 without much vetting…

  • 1SGinTN

    than the media was for vetting the candidate. Senators like Lugar and Voinivich will likely dash those hopes, however.

  • bobojake

    and letting them know we expect more of them. I called and left a message. Its makes me feel better and hopefully starts letting them know they are responsible to All Americns for the way we leave they USA for our Grand Children

    • 1SGinTN

      That’s how we defeated amnesty, amoung other bad ideas. It requires a deluge of feedback on our part.

    • $peciallist

      .

    • mbecker908

      Call at a time when the phones are manned and speak to a person. Also, call the office in DC and call all of their field offices at home. You can get all of their numbers from their Senate websites.

      The best tack to take is usually to get a person on the phone, identify yourself and where you live, ask what the Senator’s position on issue XYZ is rather than starting with your point. If he agrees with you, reinforce your support for the Senator’s position. If they don’t agree, have two or three very brief bullet points about your side of the issue. If they have no position, ask when they might be expected to have a published opinion and then run down your bullets.

      Always be nice the gnome answering the phone. They don’t get paid squat (in some cases, if at all) and they listen to nasty people all day long. Absolutely no profanity and don’t try to debate with them, they’re not on the Senator’s policy committee.

  • Pingback: Bluey?s blog ? Lugar, Voinovich Go Soft on Eric Holder ::

  • jonreagan

    More and more people are thinking that the mess in Chicago will end up being Obama’s Whitewater. In which case, we need to start thinking about two words: Special Prosecutor.

    Holder’s past sevice, as a shill for Bill Clinton in the Mark Rich case, will make him especially vulnerable to charges that he’s not acting independently–i.e., charges that he’s acting as Barack’s lawyer, and not the people’s. Frankly, the fact that he’s African American will increase the pressure on him to appear impartial…that he’s not favoring a brother who is, unfortunately, fairly corrupt.

    Should the Chicago cesspool worsen–which is a fair guess, at this point—the pressure on a new Attorney General to appoint a Special Prosecutor will start to gather steam. That pressure will be much greater on an Eric Holder than it would be on almost any other potential AG. And I suspect that because of his past performance, Holder will be much less inclined to stonewall. Hopefully, the Rezko-Obama connection will get the investigation that it obviously never received in Chicago.

  • rbdwiggins

    Sen. Leahy, I’m confident that you and every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee will give Eric Holder the same courtesy you gave John Ashcroft.

    The Senate confirmed John Ashcroft as attorney general today, capping a five-week struggle that turned into the most bitter battle over a cabinet nominee in more than a decade.

    And, don’t forget to preface the debate with four days of confirmation hearings. I’m sure that you and all of your Senate colleagues agree… Eric Holder deserves no less.

    A sorely divided Senate confirmed John Ashcroft as attorney general Thursday, nearly completing President George W. Bush’s cabinet but baring signs of deep partisan difference and bitter division on a range of social issues in the process.

    (Snip…)

    The vote followed unusually prolonged and acrimonious debate, lasting from early Wednesday until Thursday afternoon. It was the largest margin against a presidential nominee since John Tower, nominated by Mr. Bush’s father to head the Pentagon, was voted down in 1989 amid charges of drinking and womanizing.

    And in the end, there can only be one conclusion… Eric Holder deserves no more consideration than John Tower.

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  • Pingback: Bluey?s blog ? Lugar, Voinovich Go Soft on Eric Holder ::

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    That phrase in Bluey’s column is the key phrase. Bill Clinton is responsible for his pardons and his most vile pardons were at the behest of Hillary for the FALN terrorists. Holder was a bit player. We will be getting the policies of Obama no matter who his AG is, but I can’t take seriously any outrage at Holder unless it is 10 fold against Hillary.

    Giving honorable friends passes and playing the game lib dems define is why we are now a minority.

    Take on Hillary.

  • Mike gamecock DeVine

    enemy combatent terrorists captured in the war would not be entitled to POW status under Geneva. We could do worse than Holder. The real villians in the pardons were Bill and Hillary. Holder’s role was perfunctory. Bill was going to pardon Rich and the FALN no matter what Holder said.

    Let’s not avoid the real issue like we did for the past 8 years and esp the past 2. Hillary is vile. Bill is vile and the dem party is vile. Let’s say so and produce the evidence and quit pussy footing around.

  • AceInTX

    If it’s not these two clowns leaving the reservation it will be Svowe and Collins, or McCain and Graham, or Colman and Chamblis, or Specter and Corker, or Thune and Lincoln putting bipartisanship and comity over party and principle!

    We’re so screwed!

  • mbecker908

    We couldn’t get anything thru the Senate when we had 55 votes.