How long can Eric Holder hang on?

[DonViejo]

It's been a long, fraught tenure rife with faux-scandals and near-misses. But the AP phone flap could be different

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

When Attorney General Eric Holder walked into a hearing room in the Rayburn House office building yesterday, he must have expected that lawmakers would rake him over the coals for his department’s snooping on AP reporters, but he didn’t seem nervous. After all, this pageant of scandal and Congressional grilling has become routine for Holder, who has been a lightning rod since the first days of the Obama Administration.

After almost four and half years on the job, he’s been the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress, been called “rabidly un-American,” and even reportedly tried to resign. A LexisNexis search for “Eric Holder” “grilled” and “Congress” returns 534 articles. Attorneys general don’t often last two presidential terms.

Could the AP phone records controversy could be a tipping point for the embattled AG, whom even Democrats have been wary to support?

The sheer number of controversies, real or imagined, befalling Holder is astonishing. From the left, he’s taken heat from the likes of Elizabeth Warren for saying big banks are too big to prosecute; from civil liberties advocates for prosecuting twice as many leakers as were prosecuted under every other previous president; and from Obama’s liberal base for opposing liberalization of marijuana laws.

Early on in Holder’s tenure, the Justice Department earned a black eye for its handling of the corruption case against the late Sen. Ted Stevens. Holder replaced the entire prosecution team and handled the situation about as well as possible, but it nonetheless planted doubt about politicization inside the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/16/how_much_longer_can_holder_hang_on/

[geek tragedy]

1. the Ted Stevens prosecution happened under Bush, so that

has fuck-all to do with Holder.

[jehop61]

2. Chicago Sun Times

reported today that he will leave when all dies down and Deval Patrick will replace him. (sorry don't know how to link. Check Sneeds column).

[BlueCaliDem]

5. That's gossip spread by a "Michael" Sneed who spread the "Obama had an affair with a staffer" rumor.

Geek Tragedy wrote a post on her - yes, that's a her:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=306266

[shraby]

3. Holder has recused himself from the AP investigation that the republicans called for.

[TwilightGardener]

4. I have never had a problem with Holder.

The AG position is always fraught with controversy.

[MjolnirTime]

6. Until the end of this term.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. The republicans are frightened what he might do to them

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

8. Holder is stronger than many of us give him credit for. He'll be fine. He survived the Clinton

years. He'll survive this!

[bigdarryl]

9. Holder ain't going no FUCKING WHERE!!!!!

End of discussion