Redstate

Posted at 12:27pm on Jun. 24, 2008 Eric Holder: "Not ethically qualified", and Obama once thought something was wrong

By Soren Dayton

The National Legal and Policy Center has called for Eric Holder to be fired by the Obama campaign. Holder is the co-chair of Obama's campaign and the co-chair of his VP selection committee. According to NLPC:

According to NLPC President Peter Flaherty, Holder is not ethically qualified to serve on the Vice-Presidential selection committee. His track record is not one of independence or objectivity. Instead, he has been guided by politics and self-interest.

That Holder is ethically unfit is not news to Redstate readers. I have written on Holder before. Read on for a recap of old stories, and some shocking new ones.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Corrupt Democrat Watch | Culture of Corruption | Eric Holder — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:11am on Jun. 21, 2008 Eric Holder: The Vetter who tries to get terrorists out of prison

By Soren Dayton

Earlier, I wrote about Eric Holder, Barack Obama's Veep Vetter. That is after the previous Veep Vetter, Jim Johnson, resigned under shame and later was found to be at the center of a corruption scandal involving the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee who got under-market loans from Countrywide, which the Senate is voting to give several billion dollars.

At the time, I noted that Holder, who some think would be Obama's Attorney General and is one of Obama's national security advisors -- even though he doesn't attend meetings in public --, argued for clemency for members of a Puerto Rican terrorist organization.

Well, while Holder was getting a pardon for the husband of a big donor to Bill Clinton (we are talking about Marc Rich), he missed that another set of terrorists, two convicted members of the domestic terror group, the Weather Underground, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, were getting commuted sentences. Now, Obama doesn't think that the commutations of these guys were acceptable. When his connection to Bill Ayers was raised by Hillary Clinton, he said:

"By Senator Clinton's own vetting standards, I don't think she'd make it since President Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of two members of the Weather Underground, which I think is a slightly more significant act than me serving on a board with someone for actions that he did 40 years ago."

So this future AG and current national security advisor sherpaed the pardon of the husband of a big donor, argued for clemency for terrorists, and overlooked the commutation of other terrorists.

And this guy is supposed to vet Obama's VP choices? Are you kidding me? Is this a circus? Are these guys the freak show?

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Clinton Pardons | Eric Holder — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:41am on Jun. 15, 2008 Just the latest senior Obama man who is "awash in cronyism"

By Jeff Emanuel

On June 12, RedState's Soren Dayton introduced us to Eric Holder, a member (formerly along with not the Jim Johnson Barack Obama used to know) of the Obama vice presidential search team.

At the time, Dayton wrote the following:

I would like to introduce you to Eric Holder, Bill Clinton's former Deputy Attorney General. Holder was involved in the pardon of Marc Rich, the Democratic donor who had fled the country. In March of 2003, the NYT wrote about the case. They make it clear that Holder is awash in cronyism, skirts ethics laws, had horrible judgement, and is simply incompetent. He also advocated for clemency for terrorists. And this is Obama's primary advisor on his first decision as the Democratic nominee.
[...]

So this is the change Obama brings. Warmed-over shady operators from the Clinton administration. These guys do favors for each other for jobs. They give favored access to donors. They skirt around ethics rules. And they don't do their jobs.

Oh yeah. And he argued that members of a terrorist organization should get clemency.

This isn't a hypothetical. This is the change that Obama is bringing to Washington right now. This is the guy that Obama is putting in charge of his first major decision, after his previous choice was found to be ethically flawed.

Now, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has caught on, as well, running an op-ed from Jack Kelly titled "There goes another one: Obama seems blind to the ethical problems of his associates," which says:

A day later than would have been politic, Jim Johnson joined the burgeoning crowd under Barack Obama's bus.
[...]
In a press conference in St. Louis Tuesday, Sen. Obama dismissed criticism of Mr. Johnson as "a game," and said he would keep him on.

"Obama's cavalier response utterly contradicted his campaign's supposed crusade for reform," said pundit Craig Crawford. "Not only did these words come across as tone deaf to the very ethical issues that he has raised in this election, but his remarks sounded like the ethical relativism we so often hear from the Washington business-as-usual crowd that Obama claims to be running against."

A day later, after The New York Times and The Washington Post raised more serious questions about Mr. Johnson, he resigned.
[...]
We may see this pattern repeated soon. The more problematic appointment to his vice presidential search committee may be Eric Holder, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Mr. Holder was a key figure in the last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife, Denise, was a major contributor to Clinton campaigns and to the Clinton library fund.

Mr. Rich, who fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution on 51 counts of tax fraud, was not eligible for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines. But Mr. Holder circumvented normal procedures and kept other Justice Department lawyers in the dark. A congressional committee described his conduct as "unconscionable."

If Mr. Obama were as smart as he imagines himself to be, he would have thrown Mr. Holder under the bus at the same time as Mr. Johnson. But some people are slow learners.

The Obama New-Politics Express appears to be running a bit behind schedule, mowing down friends, advisors, and confidantes after, rather than before, they embarrass the candidate in a very public way.

In fairness to Barack Obama, though, it's got to be tough to be a "quick learner" when you grew up steeped in, and continue to represent, the oldest brand of politics America's Second City has to offer.

Changing the wrapper is easy, as Obama has shown with his Potemkin HopeChangeHopeChange campaign. Actually changing yourself, though, to represent and embody something different than the identity-politicking, underhanded, cronyist world you come from and have always worked in?

That would appear to be a far more difficult feat -- and it is one that Obama, if trying at all, is failing at miserably.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Democrat Hypocrisy | Eric Holder | Obamafiles — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:01pm on Jun. 12, 2008 Eric Holder: Obama's Vetter who doesn't Vet

By Soren Dayton

Yesterday, Jim Johnson stepped down from Barack Obama's VP selection committee. It turned out that he had received potentially improper loans from Countrywide Financial, which Obama had attacked. But it turns out that Johnson isn't the only sketchy person on the VP selection committee.

I would like to introduce you to Eric Holder, Bill Clinton's former Deputy Attorney General. Holder was involved in the pardon of Marc Rich, the Democratic donor who had fled the country. In March of 2003, the NYT wrote about the case. They make it clear that Holder is awash in cronyism, skirts ethics laws, had horrible judgement, and is simply incompetent. He also advocated for clemency for terrorists. And this is Obama's primary advisor on his first decision as the Democratic nominee. Read on for details.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Clinton Pardons | Eric Holder | Pardongate — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:43pm on Jun. 10, 2008 Thrown Under the Bus Watch: Eric Holder & Jim Johnson.

My, that was quick.

By Moe Lane

This would almost be painful to watch (Via Jake Tapper, who gets extra points for uttering "my stars" in response.):

Almost. Fortunately, I'm laughing too hard at the sight of watching someone who is supposed to be the second incarnation of Demosthenes fumbling his way through an explanation of how you can get somebody to do your VP pick for you while still not having them actually work for you.

Media figures, please take note from Sunlen Miller's example: Senator Barack Obama is fun when he's flailing about.

Moe Lane

PS: Semi-transcript (grabbed from Tapper) after the fold.

PPS: See also our own Kevin Holtsberry, over at Stop Him Now. I hope that you haven't thrown out all the old stationary yet, Kevin.

Posted in 2008 | A Child wearing an adult's clothes | Barack Obama | Eric Holder | Jim Johnson — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »