OPINION:
Eric Holder has had enough. He announced Thursday he’s heading for the exits, presumably as soon as President Obama finds a suitable replacement.
It wouldn’t be hard to find a candidate willing to do the job as it’s supposed to be done. Mr. Holder has scorned the role of the nation’s top lawman who enforces federal law without fear or favor. Mr. Holder prefers instead to be seen as, in his words, an “activist attorney general.”
The nation thirsts for a successor who goes back to the old model, where the attorney general doesn’t check party affiliation before deciding whether to act or what to do.
The most recent and troubling example of tilting scales of justice was seen in Ferguson, Mo., where a young black man who had just robbed a store was shot by a white cop under circumstances still murky. Mr. Holder flew to Ferguson to announce “a full-scale investigation.” When a young white man was similarly shot by a police officer in Salt Lake City, Mr. Holder expressed no interest in speeding to Utah.
The next attorney general will have an uphill battle in repairing the damage done to the integrity of the Justice Department. John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, authors of “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department,” cite inside sources who describe Justice as “racialized and radicalized” under Mr. Holder, “to the point of corruption.”
From inexplicably dismissing the nearly completed prosecution of the New Black Panthers voting-rights intimidation case in Philadelphia to the stonewalling of congressional investigations of the deadly Fast and Furious gunrunning debacle, Mr. Holder has consistently put partisan politics at the top of his agenda.
He bashes America as a “nation of cowards” because Americans don’t want to listen to harangues about race. He sues states for enforcing immigration and voter-integrity laws.
Most attorneys general don’t stay as long as Mr. Holder has. He is one of three original Obama Cabinet appointees remaining. His resignation has long been the subject of speculation in Washington. The timing is curious, given the increasing likelihood of a Republican takeover of the Senate in November.
Perhaps the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would use the lame-duck Senate session to put through another divisive nominee, employing the “nuclear option” on a party-line vote, before a new Senate convenes in January.
Nearly everybody would be pleased and reassured if Mr. Obama selects a fair-minded, less partisan nominee whose credentials speak for themselves, enabling easy clearance through the Senate Judiciary Committee, regardless of whether it’s controlled by Democrats or Republicans, and an overwhelming vote of confirmation.
It’s not a good sign that Al Sharpton, the noted theologian and race hustler, says that he is “engaged in immediate conversations” with the White House about the selection of Mr. Holder’s successor. It’s scary to think he might be telling it like it is.
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