Now that Emanuel has stepped down, the mood among Holder loyalists is triumphal

[pscot]

A funny thing happened on the way to restoring the rule of law in America. This profile of AG Eric Holder is in the current GQ. It gives a glimpse into how the policy decisions "evolve" in the Obama Whitehouse.

Former White House counsel Greg Craig, an ally of Holder's on several key issues, was recently heard on an open microphone predicting, "If Rahm goes, Eric survived," and in my own conversations with congressional, White House, and DOJ sources, I heard the same prognosis at least a dozen times. Yet after following Holder's trajectory for the past year, the forecast seems far from certain. If anything, Emanuel's departure brings into focus the more elusive question that has surrounded the Obama White House since day one: how much Emanuel actually drove administration policy, and how much he only reflected it. I had come to Holder's office to find out: Did Rahm's departure signal a new opening, or was the problem never with Rahm at all?

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Citing national-security concerns, he invoked the right to choose the trial venue himself. In doing so, Holder aides point out, Obama upended his own detainee policy before a single prisoner had been tried. After going to great lengths to inject structure and law into the process, after assigning senior cabinet officials to devise a coherent system of rules, he then revoked those rules and returned the detainees to a state of legal limbo.

"It was wildly unfortunate," says David Ogden, Holder's former deputy attorney general. "The president gave that decision to the attorney general. The attorney general made it. Then the White House had to deal with a political reality in Congress. And the situation was assessed as being politically untenable." Others are less forgiving, calling Obama's capitulation an insult to Holder and a regression to the arbitrary policy of the Bush years. "There is an important principle at stake here," Holder told me. "You don't shy away from using this great system for political reasons. It hampers our ability as we interact with our allies if we don't stand for the rule of law....

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Read More http://www.gq.com/news-politics/politics/201012/eric-holder-attorney-general-rahm-emanuel-white-house-elections#ixzz16yYEfZqg

[Angry Dragon]

1. Let me know when this administration finds "the rule of law"