Sunday, June 16, 2013

Sunday Question for Liberals

Eric Holder: weak link in the Obama cabinet who should be replaced, or target of a bum rap?
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Posted by Jonathan Bernstein at 4:26 PM
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13 comments:

  1. Ron E.June 16, 2013 at 4:31 PM

    Mostly bum rap. Unless Holder himself wants to leave, I'd let him stay at least until after the Senate changes its confirmation rules to something remotely sane. (Not holding my breath waiting for that to happen naturally.)

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  2. longwalkdownlyndaleJune 16, 2013 at 4:34 PM

    I think it's a bum wrap. The criticism lobbed at him over the years seem to either be made up or just people taking policy disagreements with the status quo and saying they are his "fault." For example, it's fine to argue for changes in the law legalizing marijuana but don't get outraged when the federal law isn't changed and the Drug Enforcement Agency turns out to be an agency that enforces laws about drugs. Or at the least don't try argue that Holder is doing something "wrong."

    At the same time he has been around for a while and there comes a time when reshuffling the cabinet makes sense. Having a new AJ might make a lot of sense for practical political reasons too.

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  3. backyardfoundryJune 16, 2013 at 4:59 PM

    Or at the least don't try argue that Holder is doing something "wrong."

    It's clearly not Holder's responsibility, because Obama has not followed through with his promise to call off the DEA nor made much noise about it since he was elected. This is similar to the "no mandate" stance that he used to distinguish himself from Hillary: rhetoric to get libertarianish dingbats to muddy the bloggy waters and vote for hope.

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  4. philosophical ronJune 16, 2013 at 6:54 PM

    Just off the top of my head, with Hilary out, is there anyone besides Holder in Obama's Cabinet I can even name? Uh ... the sallow youngish banker guy in Treasury, Timothy last name begins with G, Geithner, that's it.

    Can you really consider any of them a strong link in a chain, or in an organization?

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    Replies
    1. CSHJune 16, 2013 at 8:05 PM

      Ron, that's an interesting, and perhaps dreadful, observation in light of all the hoopla about Obama's cabinet being a Lincoln-esque "Team of (high quality) Rivals".

      Diamonds in the rough, I guess.

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    2. backyardfoundryJune 16, 2013 at 8:13 PM

      C'mon! John Kerry? Janet Napolitano?

      I would think that most dilletantish political watchers would know at least those two.

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    3. the classicistJune 16, 2013 at 8:43 PM

      ...is that a joke about Jack Lew keeping a low profile? or not?

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    4. JohnJune 16, 2013 at 10:55 PM

      You really can't name John Kerry? I think that says more about you than it does about Obama's cabinet.

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    5. philosophical ronJune 17, 2013 at 1:57 AM

      Sorry, I'm over 60 and I've been struggling with a heavy list of tasks assigned by my wife, for our seasonal business event that's coming up, coming into Jonathan's place for a break on stolen time, my mind was indeed blank of Obama cabinet members ...

      Can Kerry name himself as influential as Obama apparently slides into a totally unnecessary allegiance with Sunni autocrats in an escalation of a national civil war, on the side of a very mixed alliance, that is entangled with a rising outbreak of mass regional religious civil war, on Sunni-Shi'a lines that have been kept pretty quiet for the last 900 years or so?

      We are killing ourselves, and our civilization, with our own waste products. Dispute it if you like, to me it's the basic fact of our "international situation." To see America and American politics entangled in huge Middle east wars for the next few years is absolutely not where this Obama voter wanted to go.

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  5. DrewJune 17, 2013 at 12:47 AM

    Target of a bum rap for sure, not sure if he should be replaced or continue though. The one strike against replacing him is that it would sort of validate all the flimsy criticism he has endured from the far right, which I dont think is a good precedent to establish. He's had some bumps though, and not all of the criticism is phony. But if Obama is confident in the job he is doing, then Id be happy with him staying.

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  6. AnonymousJune 17, 2013 at 9:38 AM

    We really only hear about Holder when there's a problem. His job isn't one of those where you get a lot of positive press for a job well done: SecState, for example, can negotiate a treaty or a peace deal and get good press. Justice is another whole ball game.

    Holder's other problem is that he has to enforce all the laws, unless he can get a solid constitutional argument to the contrary. He probably can only do that once or twice as well, and he's already done it once. So he gets blamed for all the crappy laws Congress has ever passed: drug laws, surveillance laws, excessive penalty laws. He can prioritize, but he cannot just quit unless Congress acts.

    Right now, in post-policy Republican-land, nobody can even help shape legislation. The Senate is writing an immigration law, and we all expect that the House will either say yes or no, but they will have zero input on what it says. Republicans are completely powerless to affect legislation. So they complain about how laws are enforced, or policy is executed. I say ignore them.

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  7. Matt JarvisJune 17, 2013 at 11:32 AM

    Not enough data to make a conclusion, but my inclination is weak link. I'd hoped for something better from a Dem administration on the continuance of Bush's security state. While Obama is in charge, I'd think that an AG that says "no, this isn't really constitutional/a good idea" might have tempered things; I get the sense that Holder is a yes man. All this is impressions, of course.

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  8. Morgan ConradJune 18, 2013 at 4:55 PM

    Weak link. Parsing between the lines, he basically admitted to Sen. Mark Kirk that the administration is spying on the two other branches of govt. If you accept this, he must go.

    http://constantlyinthedarkness.blogspot.com/2013/06/impeach-eric-holder.html

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