Baiting Eric Holder
It looks like the Republicans threw every name on Obama's roster of cabinet designates into a hat and drew Eric Holder. And so, he'll be the guy they try to block. This has been taking shape for a while now, and, as Zach Roth notes over at Muckraker, it continues to this day. But it's important to see this as the nakedly craven move it is. Take a look at this quote, from a letter Patrick Leahy sent to Arlen Specter about a month ago:
As I have said repeatedly from the time reports of his likely designation began appearing in the press in mid-November, I thought we should move promptly. It hardly came as a surprise when the President-elect announced that Eric [Holder] would be a key part of his national security team at the designation announcement on December 1. My recollection is that your initial reaction on November 18 was that you were at that time already reviewing his record. Of course, Eric is someone you and I both know well and have known and worked with for years.
Specter wasn't snowed by the Holder appointment. He was well-prepared, and, what's more, he's very familiar with him, and the work he does. But suddenly he's extremely concerned that the man might not be fit to be the Attorney General. This wasn't an epiphany. These are his marching orders.
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I do think that blocking Eric Holder is crass and etc. But I don't think it's random. See, one of the very early questions that will face the Obama Administration is how to treat the crimes committed by the former Bush Administration. President Bush did not deliver any pardons, which means that an incoming Attorney General would be well within his rights to appoint a Special Prosecutor or in general open an investigation into, say, torture (along the Levin-McCain Report lines).
How can the Republicans in Congress possibly fight this? If they try to make a tough fight over Eric Holder, try and paint him as a partisan -- maybe leveraging his involvement in the Clinton Administration pardons -- they can then slander any attempt to bring President Bush or cabinet to justice as a partisan assault. They're hoping that they'll force Obama into the position of losing his mantle of bipartisanship, or forgetting any attempt to discipline the Bush administration.
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