At NPR an Eric Holder gush-fest

Yesterday, Attorney General Holder rejected the legal opinion of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that the D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional. In doing so, he supported the political aims of President Obama, who wants to place more Democrats in Congress.

During the Bush administration, the overruling of any career government lawyer was considered scandalous by the MSM and its lefty legal analysts. To overrule the highly regarded OLC would have been considered almost criminal. To do so in a way that favored the narrow political interests of the president’s party might well have been deemed an impeachable offense.

Yesterday evening, Nina Totenbeg the liberal legal correspondent for National Public Radio, took to the air to discuss Attorney General Holder’s big day. But she did not discuss Holder’s rejection of the OLC’s opinion. Rather, Totenberg turned her segment with Judy Woodruff into a gush-fest in which the two heaped praise on Holder for dropping the case against former Senator Ted Stevens.

Holder’s decision on Stevens may well have been the right call. But Stevens is out of the Senate (thanks to the prosecution) and at age 85 will not return. Thus, Holder thwarted no Democratic interest by ending the prosecution.

To my knowledge, no one has questioned Holder’s ability to make good decisions when the interests of his boss are at not at stake. But yesterday, he provided more evidence that he cannot be counted on to place the law ahead of his party.

Not that Nina Totenberg cares.

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