May 30, 2013

"As Anger at Eric Holder Grows, So Does His Value as Obama’s Lightning Rod."

"Holder is the latest in a long line of attorneys general who do the boss’s dirty work and absorb anger that would otherwise reach the president, writes Nick Gillespie."

Via Instapundit (where there are additional links on this topic).

52 comments:

Nonapod said...

Holder certainly creates a nice barrier of plausible deniability. If he must fall on his sword, he must. I don't believe any of this stuff will ever be definitively and incontrovertibly connected to Obama, and even if it was, he'd probably never be impeached.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Taking after Obama and wearing a blue tie is a smart move.

edutcher said...

Zeus may have a special thunderbolt just for him.

traditionalguy said...

Who is angry at Holder? He is a hood ornament on the Affirmative Action Marxist Limousine. The driver Obama and the mechanic Soros and the MSM fueling the beast that are the ones who are running us over.

Why be angry at the lawyer. It's the client's case you are against. But that is a lawyer's training speaking.

Methadras said...

He doesn't know anything like his boss, so there you go. If anything Holder is a floating ground.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

He may not be hole up in a boat on blocks in Watertown, yet, he is not surviving this.

Strelnikov said...

If only he could actually be struck by lightning, that would be a good start.

John said...

To borrow a line - How smart can Holder be? He's pissing into the wind.

David said...

Duh!

Holder is a side show.

He will leave Justice sooner or later and get very rich.

Don't think he's going to get that Supreme Court seat though.

That nomination would not be in Obama's interest.

Seeing Red said...

Drudge -


W met with the IRS head 1x in 4 years.

Barry - 157 times.

Henry said...

Holder gives the media someone they can pretend to be angry at.

He isn't a lightning rod. He's a stalking horse, a decoy. And the media knows he's a decoy, and they are so very very happy to have one.

We have a media that treats as a virtue the fact Mr. Obama is uniformed and passive. He's a brand, not a president. He's Betty Crocker.

glenn said...

Pretty clear to anybody who looks that searching reporters e-mails and using the IRS and other agencies to surpress the activities of Obama's opposition was and is Admin policy. And it came right from the top. Like the Mafia there's a cutout in the WH to give Obama deniability but he's the boss and he set the policies. Too bad we don't have real newspapers.

Big Mike said...

I was an adult living in the Washington metro area during the Nixon era, and I thought no one could be a worse Attorney General than John Mitchell. But Holder is so much worse that it boggles the mind.

Plus, since then I've learned about Mitchell Palmer, AG under Woodrow Wilson. Whether Holder is worse than Palmer is a debatable point. But there's no question that he's worse than John Mitchell at his worst.

chickelit said...

I think Holder was also supposed to be Obama's "lightening rod": he was supposed to show people of color that laws weren't necessarily stacked against them. But he failed if he actually overlooked laws or broke them.

Colonel Angus said...

Newsflash to the media, some of us who actually were paying attention 5 years ago knew Holder was corrupt and a power hungry demagogue so its nice to see you guys finally opening your eyes.

Same thing with Obama only I don't think they are quite as ready to get off their knees for him yet.

Seeing Red said...

Holder was Reno's #2 - is anyone surprised at this?

Scott M said...

Same thing with Obama only I don't think they are quite as ready to get off their knees for him yet.

I think they got off their knees when Obamacare was passed. Sadly, it was only to stand up, turn around, and bite the pillow.

Anonymous said...


Yeah, Zeus! As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus! You got a problem with that?

SteveR said...

All that really matters to me is retaining the House in 2014 (and 2016), making gains in the Senate, at least enough to gain a majority by 2016 and making sure HRC does not get elected president.

RBG will retire so Obama will get to nominate another liberal to the SCOTUS.

Meanwhile the more chaos the better.

jacksonjay said...


Maybe now is the time to deal with Iran!

Anonymous said...

The extra twist in the Holder-Rosen saga is that the Judge (third one they tried) who signed the warrant ordered it posted on the Court web site after a period, but it never was, so it remained secret:

A federal judge had ordered the documents unsealed in November 2011, but they were kept sealed for 18 months and not posted on the court’s online docket until last week, after The Post inquired about them.

Lamberth blamed a series of administrative errors and said a review of the “performance of the personnel involved is underway.” He also said he was creating a new category on the court’s Web site where all search and arrest warrants will be made public unless they fall under a separate sealing order.

Anonymous said...

So when is lightning going to strike and torch his ass?

On Shulman, his behavior is like a bag man - the constant conduit of verbal information and incentive to the plumbers raking through the muck.

It doesn't matter if he was nominated by Bush. He was easily drawn in by the dark side and they viewed him as the ideal patsy.

Hagar said...

What really takes the cake in that regard is when JFK nominated Bobby for Attorney General and got away with it.

I don't think Eric Holder is evil; I do think he worries too much about things an Attorney General should not be worrying about. The Justice Dept. is not supposed to be a soapbox nor a welfare agency.

jacksonjay said...


Apparently his appointment by Bush was an act of "bipartisianship"! He was Democratic Party donor!

W was a little naive that way! He held on to Alberto too long!

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

What's bad for Obama is really good for Obama!

Hagar said...

and I do think all that worrying has affected his head.
Appalling judgment.

ricpic said...

Holder to Issa: Your conduct as a member of congress is pretty shameful, you know.

Issa to Holder: Your days are numbered.


When Holder in effect crapped on Issa he sealed his doom. He's stupid enough to think his teflon skin would let him get away with anything. Watch Issa drag this out. It will be agony for Eric & Barry, who are brothers in their AA black racism. Which is why Barry will NEVER throw Eric under the bus. It would be Barry throwing HIMSELF under the bus. Which is why Eric twisting in the wind at the hands of Issa will go on and on and on.

J said...

Plus with Holder damaged Obama no longer has his shield.BHO now knows that there is someone out there that will turn his coat to.protect his own fundament.

Amartel said...

Make that his hypothetical value as Obama's lightning rod. The article talks about AGs who have been lightning rods for their POTI, like Janet Reno and Clinton, and there is clearly precedent. But there were AGs who did not fill that need, or did so insufficiently. Holder and Obama are joined at the hip in a way that Reno and Clinton were not, and as awful as Mitchell was he didn't draw off enough steam to prevent impeachment. Not that I think it's going to come to that in Obama's case. Holder's antics may end up hurting Obama more than helping him by throwing fuel on an already raging fire. The perjury was an unforced error. Also, Obama's studied distance and aloofness from the political trenches (I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here) is becoming non-credible to all but his most besotted followers.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Holder pled very much the same ignorance, in the aftermath of the Clinton Mark Rich pardon, that he is pleading to now with the press mess.

Erick Holder is a congenital liar.

Republicans on the House Government Reform Committee disagreed with Holder's version [of his own role in the pardon] and alleged that he was a knowing participant, according to a 2003 report. They said Holder failed to fully inform prosecutors of the pending pardon, and they criticized his "neutral leaning favorable" opinion to Clinton.[18]

Former FBI director, Louis Freeh, commented on the matter in 2009, saying that the Clinton White House had "used" Holder and kept both the FBI and the DOJ in the dark as to their full activities around the last minute pardons.[19]

JAL said...

@ Hagar I don't think Eric Holder is evil

What's that banality quote again?

Only it has been active -- the New Black Panthers ... the lecture that discrimination is only against blacks, not whites ...

Marc Rich? (He didn't know Marc Rich had a felony warrant out on him when he handed WJC the papers? This guy has made a career out of not knowing.)

Someone as incompetent as he was/is never should have gotten there to start with, but everyone was cutting Barry the new guy with darker skin than anyone before some slack.

Excerpted from The Washington Times, January 23, 2009:

Attorney General-designate Eric Holder’s confirmation has been delayed for a week to allow more time to question the nominee. We’re willing to overlook Mr. Holder’s role, during the Clinton administration, in both the pardon of international fugitive Marc Rich and the failure to appoint an independent counsel to investigate evidence of fund-raising abuses by Vice President Al Gore, despite recommendations to the contrary by FBI Director Louis Freeh and successive heads of the Department of Justice’s campaign task force. We’re even prepared to overlook Mr. Holder’s apparently inaccurate 2001 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning his role in the Rich pardon. After all, he served as deputy attorney general for more than three years, which is long enough to be entitled to a few mistakes of judgment and memory. [Oh really!?]

What does trouble us and should trouble the American people, because it reflects a pattern likely to be repeated, is Mr. Holder’s central role and the influence of racial politics in the 1999 pardon of 16 FALN (Armed Forces of Puerto Rican Nationalists) terrorists.

Following the Los Angeles Times’s Jan. 9 disclosure of new evidence concerning Holders’ role, it is clear - in the words of the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy - that “Holder … engineer[ed] the shocking, politically driven pardons of 16 Puerto Rican separatists … responsible for over 130 bombings and the murders of innocent Americans; terrorists who hadn’t even applied for clemency or expressed a modicum of remorse....


Politics drives this man, these people only. The hell with the American Vision of the Rule of Law and equality.

He's not a distraction, or a lightening rod, he is Obama's Enforcer and Barack Obama is responsible.

Define evil, Hagar.

damikesc said...

It's nice seeing some "National Security reporters", such as the clown at Slate, DEFENDING what Holder did.

I hope the next Republican President fires everybody in the federal government outside of the military and forces them all to re-apply.

Put the jobs open for competition. Let our fat, lazy slugs in bureaucracy cry that they have to work in the real world.

edutcher said...

The Drill SGT said...

Yeah, Zeus! As in, father of Apollo? Mt. Olympus? Don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass? Zeus! You got a problem with that?

I loved that character and Jackson was great in the part.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Nobody seems to have written about Holder with a critical eye.

Isn't that odd? for a guy in the public eye for so long? nothing?

J said...

Obama has his unofficial but effective management technique of back dooring policy through the unions.Everyone thinks this is about getting unon money but what it is really about is union networks inside organizations.Obama to NTEU head to f the Tea parties within one day.Obama to f Boeing within how long?Obama to save the UAW and screw Republican car dealers and bondholders.

J said...
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Nomennovum said...
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Nomennovum said...
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Nomennovum said...
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Anonymous said...

JAL said...
Marc Rich? (He didn't know Marc Rich had a felony warrant out on him when he handed WJC the papers? This guy has made a career out of not knowing.)


US Attorney Holder in 95 had pursued Rich and was quoted in the WSJ at the time reciting chapter and verse about his misdeeds.

Obviously Holder suffers from a memory leak (out both ears)

Chip Ahoy said...

ϟ ϟ ϟ RELAX ϟ ϟ ϟ

What is needed here is light breezy swirling troppo guitar etude, Jerry Reed Lightning Rod.

Never hoid ovem.

Well ya did now.

Anonymous said...

Holder will be run out of office right into a multi-million-dollar-a-year consulting/speaking position. Just ask his former underlings, such as Tracy Schmaler.

Nomennovum said...

As Anger at Eric Holder Grows, So Does His Value as Obama’s Lightning Rod.

See? Even O'Bama thinks Holder is a tool.

Neverthess, it must have come as a shock to Holder to discover he was a lightning rod.

Clyde said...

A lightning rod only works once. When struck by lightning, it melts due to the intense heat. Obama needs at least two, maybe three, more lightning rods to take out the other coming strikes.

Chip S. said...

Obama's last line of defense isn't Holder, it's Kathryn Ruemmler's shoes.

She's got a pair of ruby slippers that'll take him home to Kenya if the flying monkeys get too close.

Brennan said...

Are you kidding me? When Holder resigns in disgrace he's going back to Covington & Burling to help old pal Lanny Bruer defend the too big to fail banks from criminal cases brought by the DoJ.

Oh wait. The DoJ didn't bring any criminal cases.

damikesc said...

Interesting thought from Ace... since Holder indicates he never had any intention to prosecute Rosen, then wouldn't that indicate he lied to get a warrant?

Browndog said...

Fast & Furious should have been enough to oust Holder. Contempt of Congress, yea, that too.

I Always thought Holder would stay on for a 2nd term, just to keep the "evidence" of Fast & Furious locked up for another 4 years.

JAL said...

since Holder indicates he never had any intention to prosecute Rosen, then wouldn't that indicate he lied to get a warrant?

Seems like it.

The third judge is apparently already pissed because the search warrant was supposed to be unsealed and it wasn't.

He might be really pissed by Holder's mealy mouth.

virgil xenophon said...

@JAL/The Drill Sgt..

IMHO Obama will NEVER deep-six Holder. As y'all have mentiones Holder & Obama are joined at the hip not only because Holder is Obama's enforcer, and not just because Holder knows where all the bodies are buried, but because the two are ideological soul-mates. Obama would gladly divorce Michelle before he would ever quit Holder. Dropping Holder would be like dropping the pilot before one has navigated the ship thru the dangerous rapids and sand-bars upstream. Obama has three more years as Captain of the Ship of State left and the waters are increasingly dangerous.

And to those of you who say that Holder himself is becoming a bigger liability to Obama than any future help he might offer, I'm reminded of a fellow-fighter pilot who was selected to test-flight one of our birds that had almost killed our Vice Wing Commander via contaminated oxy supply. Not realizing they would be testing his blood via active IVs as part of the flight, he tore them out before take-off when alone in the cockpit as he had been heavily drinking the night before. Were the big kids ever pissed when they found their tests invalid! The Wing Commander wanted to court-marshall my guy. "Tom" I asked him, "what'd you do that for, they're ready to kill you!" His reply? (Which applies to Obama/Holder) "Would you rather have them pissed about the known--screwed-up test, or would you rather have them find out what is now unknown--what my blood-alochol level really was? Consider the alternatives.." Accordingly, as much of a liability as Holder seems now, that's NOTHING considered to the potential can of worms that accidently might be opened by a FNG as Attny General. Better take the lesser of two evils..

Obama will brazen it out--the hidden skeletons yet uncovered and his sociopathic narcissistic personality will dictate no less..

Quaestor said...

Amartel wrote:
Make that his hypothetical value as Obama's lightning rod. The article talks about AGs who have been lightning rods for their POTI, like Janet Reno and Clinton, and there is clearly precedent.

Reno did become the focus of well-deserved outrage that could have settled on Clinton personally but didn't, however her lightening rod role wasn't without consequence. The disgusting assault on the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge and the massacre of the Branch Davidians for which Reno took "full responsibility" (a new use of the term meaning no personal consequences will be accepted or expected) did much motivate the historic Republican takeover of the House in 1994. So what if Obama escapes personal culpability, the important thing is holding the House and capturing the Senate. The figurative rotting corpse of Eric Holder twisting slowly in the wind can't be anything but a tonic to the Republicans and an albatross for Obama and his agenda.

POTI... Interesting usage. Evidently Armartel is trying to introduce a latinate neologism based on the ridiculous acronym POTUS, coined I believe by the semi-literate thugs of the Clinton west wing who didn't have the education to realize that prepositions and articles are not included in such shorthands, at least not by people older than 12. After all the national name is abbreviated U.S.A meaning the United States of America, and not TUSOA. Nor is the Space Agency abbriavted NAASA. So POTUS is second declension and takes -I as the plural,I take it. If Hillary gets the nod in 2016 will it be POTA? And if there are more than one female president will the plural be POTAE?

Carl said...

Gillespie's a smart guy, but he has an unerring instinct for drawing the wrong conclusions and completely misunderstanding human nature. I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn he's an Aspie. It would explain so much.

Holder isn't Obama's tool, he's one of the very few in the President's circle that aren't, like Jarrett and Plouffe and Michelle herself. It's like Stalin and Beria. Old dirty backstabbing peasants who each know each other's nasty secrets. They can be real with each other.

I think Holder is one of the very few Obama would not throw under the bus for convenience.