Eric Holder Jr. (tentatively) appointed Attorney General

Eric Holder, Jr.

A brief synopsis for Obama supporters and reasonable Republicans:

The man Obama has appointed Attorney General has a near perfect resume for the position: he was Deputy Atty. General under Clinton (confirmed unanimously), before that he worked for the U.S. D.o.J. as a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Office, was a Superior Court judge (appointed by Reagan) in D.C., the city for which he later served as City Attorney, and has been in private practice for 7 years. An interesting sidenote to an Alabamian such as myself: Holder, who will if confirmed be the first black Attorney General, is the brother in law of the late Vivian Malone, the black student whose entrance into the U. of Alabama George Wallace tried to block (for about a minute, until told to step aside, which he did, but he got his “I tried to stop 'em” points in with the bigot constit’chensy.

A brief synopsis for Obama haters:

Yep, first black president ain’t even in office yet and what’s he do? Up and appoints hisself a black Attorney General. Reckon he’s gone make Wanda Sykes Defense Secretary and Dr. Dre the Surgeon General next, or is he gone offer it to Bill Ayers instead?

IMHO, he engaged in serious misconduct with respect to the pardon of Marc Rich, which should have disqualified him from even being considered for the position of AG.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E3DB1239F930A25750C0A9649C8B63&scp=2&sq=eric+holder+marc+rich+pardon&st=nyt

Wanda Sykes as Defense Secretary would rock.

I expect he’ll be confirmed by a wide margin, if not unanimously again. Republican Senators will be grateful that it’s not Gorelick who was chosen, and no one in the Senate is going to want to revisit the Marc Rich controversy just for the sake of doing so.

Gawd - next thing you know we’ll have a black Secretary of State.

I like him for his opposition to the death penalty.

I know all about the Rich stuff. Why, in your opinion, should that have disqualified him?

–Cliffy

because mr. rich was pardoned while on “the run”.