Why I still have AG Holder's back

If you look up at the top of this blog, you'll see a tab titled DOJ Watch. I started that one back in January 2011 for many reasons. But it was triggered by this article in the New York Times that reflected on what would change as a result of the 2010 midterm election with control of the House going to the Republicans.

When the Obama administration wakes up next month to a divided capital, no cabinet member will be facing a more miserable prospect of oversight hearings and subpoenas than Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

Mr. Holder is a particularly juicy target because he presides over issues that have served as recurrent fodder for political controversy — including using the criminal justice system for terrorism cases, and federal enforcement of civil rights and immigration laws.

More than most administration officials, he has served as a proxy for Republican attacks on what they see as President Obama’s left-leaning agenda.

What the article didn't mention - but I was painfully aware of at the time - is that AG Holder had also been under attack from the purity left since day one of the Obama administration for not prosecuting Bush/Cheney for torture.

In other words, AG Holder was a lightening rod for attacks on President Obama from both the right and left. I set out to chronicle how he calmly and quietly went about fixing a department that had been horribly distorted during the Bush administration and tackling real problems that affect real people. Things like Medicare fraud, police brutality, reverse redlining, racial profiling, the Fair Sentencing Act and voting rights just to name a few. For an update on DOJ accomplishments, check out krebscycle (or @root_e as he's known on twitter).

As that NYT article mentioned, there is a reason people went after Holder - and its not JUST that he's the first African American Attorney General. Its because he has ACTED like he's the first African American Attorney General.

Today, the same reporter that wrote that article back in Dec. 2010 is one of three in the New York Times that joined in the pile-on...Charlie Savage. Why? Because its now his ox that is being gored by the DOJ investigation of leaks to journalists.

If Mr. Holder really thought he could escape controversy, the last few weeks have reinforced how inescapable controversy has become for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. A furor over tactics in leak investigations, including secretly obtaining phone logs for reporters at The Associated Press and Fox News, has again engulfed the attorney general in allegations, investigations and calls for resignation.

Over the course of four and a half years, no other member of President Obama’s cabinet has been at the center of so many polarizing episodes or the target of so much criticism. While the White House publicly backed Mr. Holder as he tried to smooth over the latest uproar amid new speculation about his future, some in the West Wing privately tell associates they wish he would step down, viewing him as politically maladroit.

Notice the Politico-like "some in the West Wing?" The article goes on to repeat every concocted "scandal" the right wing has made up about Holder - from the New Black Panthers nonsense to his refusal to defend DOMA.

So it seems that the press thinks they can ride these fake scandals into an attempt to end Eric Holder's career at DOJ. From the beginning I've said that I'd have his back. I still do. Because he's always had ours.