-By Warner Todd Huston
Calls have been coming from all across the political spectrum for President Obama to fire U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. But some reports now are presuming that Obama simply won’t do it and that AG Holder will weather yet another firestorm of controversy.
On June 5, The Hill noted that “dark skies” are getting brighter for Holder and that Holder will “survive the latest storm threatening his tenure.”
For evidence, the Washington-based paper pointed out the fact that Eric Holder was right there this week when President Obama put forth three new nominations for federal judgeships, a sort of thumb to the eye of Holders detractors. The White House also reiterated its support of the embattled Holder showing that there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to dump the AG.
The Hill’s analysis seems to echo what Politico wrote some weeks ago when they proclaimed Eric Holder to be untouchable.
There aren’t many voices coming out to support Holder directly, though. A few liberals have even come out to urge Obama to dump Holder. One of those voices is liberal legal analyst Jonathan Turley who has come out in favor of firing Holder from the Department of Justice. Another is Liberal radio host Bill Press. The left-wing Huffington post also wants Holder out. Even former MSNBC loud mouth Keith Olbermann Tweeted that Holder should be fired.
But Obama has given no indication at all that he is displeased that Holder lied about what he knew about Fast & Furious, that he refused to prosecute the Black Panthers that engaged in voter intimidation, that he signed off on the DOJ’s snooping on hundreds of reporters’ private and business phone calls, and more.
The interesting thing about the media coverage of Holder’s tenure, however, has been that it has all been quite matter of fact. The media has taken a just-the-facts approach detailing all the political voices on the right and the very few on the left that are lining up against Holder and in favor of his ouster and those, like Senator Chuck Schumer, that support him. There hasn’t been a lot of media commentary saying Holder should go or stay. It has just been reporting of the political landscape sans a lot of commentary.
This is quite in contrast to how Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was treated when he followed Bush’s orders and fired several U.S. Attorneys.
Then the U.S. Attorney General was excoriated by many in the press. The New York Times, for instance, was pleased as punch when Gonzales eventually resigned saying, “Gonzales should have considered himself a lucky man when he was allowed to resign in disgrace in August 2007 without being hauled into Congress on perjury or contempt charges.”
CNN published a story headlined, “Gonzales explanation of firings called ‘sorry excuse,'” during the manufactured scandal that was Bush’s firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
David C. Iglesias attacked Gonzales and Bush both in the pages of the L.A.Times.
Liberal websites Slate and Salon also called for Gonzales’ head. Slate called for Congress to impeach Gonzales. For its part, Salon carped that Gonzales had led a coup d’etat over the Constitution.
Calls for Alberto Gonzales to resign were heard throughout the media during his controversy. But this time, with Eric Holder in the DOJ, the media has been far more restrained preferring instead to merely report what Holder’s many political foes are saying instead of jumping to commentary of their own.
Even after Holder’s targeting of journalists and calling at least one of them a law breaking “co-conspirator” simply for doing his job, the media has not jumped to calls for Obama to fire him.
The media has been careful not to voice full-throated support of Holder, certainly, but neither has the media augured for his dismissal. Quite a contrast to how they treated Alberto Gonzales.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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