OPINION:
Eric Holder, the former attorney general of the United States, former political hack for boss man Barack Obama, penned a scathing piece in The Washington Post against today Attorney General William Barr, calling him, get this, hold the phone, grab a seat and take a breath — “nakedly partisan.”
That’s not pot calling kettle black.
That’s lousy, stinking, lying, spying, contemptuous partisan pitbull calling guy-doing-his-job black.
Holder’s first op-ed page deceit came in the very opener, when he wrote, “As a former U.S. attorney general, I am reluctant to publicly criticize my successors. I respect the office and understand just how tough the job can be.”
Isn’t it curious how the loudest, most critical leftists still somehow pretend as they’re not — as if they’re rocking away quietly in the shadows, clicking knitting needles and drinking tea, when suddenly they’re driven by those dastardly deceptive, gasp, Republicans, to speak up and set records straight, reluctantly but with patriotic intent?
Holder’s not exactly been all quiet on the anti-Trumping front. Or on the anti-William Barr front, either.
Just a few weeks ago, while speaking to Fox News about Barr’s role in the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump and the now-famous Ukraine telephone call, Holder said this: “I think the attorney general needs to be a little more sensitive to the appearance that gives. You have to not only be substantively neutral — you have to appear to be neutral when you are the attorney general of the United States. And I fear that [Barr] has crossed a line.”
Ah, Holder. Glorious, ever-political Holder.
Or, as Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason, put it in a 2014 headline picked up by Time: “Eric Holder’s Legacy: Duplicity, Incompetence and Obliviousness.”
Holder was held in contempt of Congress.
Holder oversaw the secret surveillance of Fox News journalist James Rosen, as well as other media types.
Holder defended Obama’s “secret kill list” of terror suspects to a disbelieving set of senators in a congressional hearing.
And lest we forget: Holder was the obstructionist guy at the top of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ gun-running scandal, Fast and Furious, that led to the death of border agent Brian Terry.
Yet this is what Holder has to say about Barr?
Barr, Holder wrote, is “unfit to be attorney general.”
He went on: “I and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of the department and a protector of the rule of law. Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage.”
Let the feigning and preening go forth.
Truth be told, Barr ought to be proud. An op-ed like that from a hack like Holder is the surest form of compliment to Barr for a job well done.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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