{"id":13470,"date":"2008-12-04T09:27:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-04T16:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/12\/04\/the-eric-holder-kerfuffle.html"},"modified":"2008-12-04T09:27:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-04T16:27:37","slug":"the_eric_holder_kerfuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/04\/the_eric_holder_kerfuffle.html","title":{"rendered":"The Eric Holder kerfuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not to defend Holder’s negligent sign-off, on the last day of the Clinton Administration, on the pardon of Marc Rich (everyone acknowledges it was a stupid thing to do, and a blot on what is otherwise a pretty darned solid career), but to my mind all the GOP and Right-wing Pundit hyperbolic outrage over the matter is grotesquely political, aiming to do three things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Poke Obama in the eye. Tarnish his <\/em>reputation if they can do it.<\/li>\n
  2. Get revenge on Bill Clinton.<\/li>\n
  3. Distract from the egregious and far more pervasive politicization and manipulation of the Justice Dept. over the lastd eight years under the Bush Administration.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The latter is the key here, I think. I mean, fergoshsakes, the worst you can find on the guy is that he okayed a political-based pardon? While under the outgoing Administration, we’ve had sign-offs on torture, warrentless wiretaping, the firing of federal prosecutors for blatantly political reasons, and vetting of applicants for ideological purity?<\/p>\n

    Holder could be Barney Fife and he’d make a better AG than the yo-yos we’ve had running Justice for the last eight years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Not to defend Holder’s negligent sign-off, on the last day of the Clinton Administration, on the pardon of Marc Rich (everyone acknowledges it was a stupid thing to do, and a blot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13556,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/17\/craving_pardon.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":0},"title":"Craving pardon","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Nov-08 10:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe they know something that we don't, i.e., that there's a load of presidential pardons likely to happen, so now's the time to jump on the gravy train. Or whatever...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136654,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/and-you-get-a-pardon-and-you-get-a-pardon.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":1},"title":"“And YOU get a pardon, and YOU get a pardon…”","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 31-May-18 10:39am","format":false,"excerpt":"Trump loves pardoning. He loves it so much, he skips all that annoying \"process\" stuff, and just does it directly. He especially likes pardoning folks prosecuted by the previous Administration, because he can. And because of the message it sends to his own people under indictment or investigation, and to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/dinesh-dsouza.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10761,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/02\/the_law_order_party.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":2},"title":"The Law & Order Party","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Jul-07 6:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Bush commutes Scooter Libby's sentence.\u00a0 President Bush commuted Monday the prison term of former White House aide I. Lewis \"Scooter\" Libby, facing 30 months in prison after a federal court...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32090,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/05\/the-president-and-the-power-to-pardon.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":3},"title":"The President and the Power to Pardon","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Jan-13 11:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Unfortunately, there's no sign that this is on Obama's radar, especially as it is of little political value to him. Nor are the GOP or Dems likely to push him for it, the former because of their ostensible \"law & order\" position, the latter for not wanting to seem \"soft\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2265,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/18\/brotherly_love.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":4},"title":"Brotherly love","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 18-Jul-02 2:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A New Republic article on the largess heaped on Florida -- and, thus, on Jeb Bush's constituents -- by Dubya. In 2000, when Hillary Clinton ran for the Senate in...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2977,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/27\/we_want_informa-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":13470,"position":5},"title":"We want … information!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Aug-02 9:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's not that he's particularly fond of his predecessor. It's not that he supported Clinton's pardon spree just before leaving office. It's not even that he's made a lot of...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}