Dahlia Lithwick: The Job Ahead for Eric Holder | Newsweek Dahlia Lithwick on Legal Issues

No Small Task For Eric Holder

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That raises the dilemma Holder will face in overhauling the Justice Department: does the reckoning owed the American people come with investigations, retribution and punishment for those who authorized the lawbreaking? Holder faces tremendous pressure from congressional Democrats and civil-liberties groups to go after those who authorized eavesdropping and torture. He will face as much pressure from the other side to turn the page and move on.

Members of Obama's transition team recently suggested that the new Justice Department may opt to do just that. That wouldn't foreclose a truth commission. And as Prof. Scott Horton noted last week, the new Justice Department should probably not be investigating the old Justice Department in the first place.

It should not surprise anyone if Holder ultimately decides that the best way to repair the Justice Department will be to look beyond the folks who wrecked it. The late attorney general Robert Jackson defined the nation's top prosecutor as someone who "tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes." The folks who want to condemn Eric Holder solely because of Marc Rich might take the same words to heart.

Lithwick is a NEWSWEEK contributing editor and a senior writer for Slate. A version of this column also appears on Slate.com.

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Then too,Lithwick is a determined leftwinger. The only ones to place ''tremendous pressure''on Holder are other leftwingers who are already whining that they are being refused a seat at the table of ''change'' by Obama,who is fast packing his cabinet with DLCers rather than DAILY KOS propeller-heads. The fear of Lthwick is that it is all getting away from her. That her desire to deliver payback to the Evil Ones will be thwarted by something bigger than all of us,the crushing financial crisis that will put Lithwicks priorities,as far as Americans go,somewhere between ambrosia salad and oil changes. Obama pulls a CHURCH Committee and he will wreck what is left of the CIA and he knows this. Go gunning for Lithwicks Evil Ones and he can forget about his ''post-partisan''world. Raise the bar too high and anyone caught even throwing chewed gum at a detainee will be howled out of office by the minority GOP. Lithwick and her CODE PINK pals will be sidelined,to make room for the ''change'' that is coming,that not all adherents of the Expected One really wanted.

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Posted By: eddiewhere @ 12/02/2008 1:25:19 AM

"I GURANTEE YOU THIS:

ERIC HOLDER WILL NOT BE WORSE THAN ASHCROFT OR GONZALEZ"eddiewhere 2008.
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Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 11/25/2008 3:50:41 PM

Then too,Lithwick is a determined leftwinger. The only ones to place ''tremendous pressure''on Holder are other leftwingers who are already whining that they are being refused a seat at the table of ''change'' by Obama,who is fast packing his cabinet with DLCers rather than DAILY KOS propeller-heads. The fear of Lthwick is that it is all getting away from her. That her desire to deliver payback to the Evil Ones will be thwarted by something bigger than all of us,the crushing financial crisis that will put Lithwicks priorities,as far as Americans go,somewhere between ambrosia salad and oil changes. Obama pulls a CHURCH Committee and he will wreck what is left of the CIA and he knows this. Go gunning for Lithwicks Evil Ones and he can forget about his ''post-partisan''world. Raise the bar too high and anyone caught even throwing chewed gum at a detainee will be howled out of office by the minority GOP. Lithwick and her CODE PINK pals will be sidelined,to make room for the ''change'' that is coming,that not all adherents of the Expected One really wanted.
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Posted By: Dreammaker46 @ 11/24/2008 9:37:39 PM

I just saw you on the Rachel Maddow Show, and I couldn't stop staring at your hair long enough to decipher what you were saying. I lost my job in June, but I would gladly give you some money for a decent hair cut. PLEASE--do something.