Eric Holder, Student Radical

The Daily Caller recounts that as a student at Columbia, Eric Holder took part in “a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters,” which Holder and his fellow radicals demanded be redesignated the “Malcolm X Lounge.” Columbia, consistent with its usual practices at the time, went along with the radicals’ demands.

The Black Student Organization’s web site said that “in 1970, a group of armed black students [the SAAS] seized the abandoned ROTC office.” The “armed” part might have been wishful thinking, but Holder’s radicalism is not in doubt. On another occasion, he participated in the occupation of a dean’s office.

Mostly, of course, I wanted to post this photo of Holder as a student at Columbia:

But there is a serious point to be made as well. Holder has talked publicly about his radical activities at Columbia; as far as one can tell from the quotes in the Daily Caller article, he has done so with pride. Which raises the same question that many have asked about Barack Obama: did Holder ever abandon his radicalism? If so, when and why? Many people hold goofy or extreme political opinions when they are young, but most grow out of them. Has Holder? Or was the boy–the radical who took over campus buildings and offices–the father to the man–the Attorney General who suppressed the voter intimidation prosecution of the New Black Panthers? Given the importance of Holder’s role as Attorney General, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, isn’t that a question that someone should ask?

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