The Holder Case

Attorney General Eric Holder is one big embarrassment for the United States and must be shown the door, argues Victor Davis Hanson. His piece, appearing on National Review Online, is well worth a read.

Holder got himself into trouble last year when he played politics by announcing that the administration would try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in a civilian courtroom. The boast was supposed to contrast an enlightened Obama team with the demonized Bush administration’s supposed lawlessness in confining KSM at Guantanamo.

But after New Yorkers protested against holding the trial practically next door to the scene of the 9/11 attack, Holder backed off. Meanwhile, the president rushed to assure the nation that KSM would be “convicted” and have “the death penalty . . . applied to him.” At that point, Bush’s planned military tribunals seemed a lot less prejudicial than Holder’s planned civilian show trial.

Holder’s continual refusal to link radical Islam with the epidemic of global terrorism is likewise entirely political. When asked at a congressional hearing whether radical Islamic terrorists were behind the Fort Hood killings, the attempted Christmas Day bombing, and the foiled Times Square attack, Holder refused to identify that obvious common catalyst. He cited instead a “variety of reasons.” The nation’s chief prosecutor was not looking at the evidence, but adhering to a politically correct, predetermined dogma.