Holder Cowardly Plays Race Card in Fast and Furious
Posted 12/20/2011 06:53 PM ET
Times have changed since the evening of April 7, 1775, when Samuel Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel .
In the supposed post-racial era ushered in with the election of President Obama and the appointment of Attorney General Eric Holder, racism has replaced it as the ultimate defense against charges of incompetence and misguided policies.
In an interview with the New York Times published over the weekend, Holder accused those who want to know who authorized the Fast and Furious gun-running operation of being racially motivated.
The 60 congressmen, two senators, two sitting governors, and all the major presidential candidates who have openly called for Holder's resignation are not concerned in his view about how two U.S. agents and hundreds of Mexicans got killed with U.S. guns.
No, according to Holder, they are motivated by the color of Holder's and President Obama's skin.
We feel critics are motivated by the content of Holder's and Obama's character — or lack of it, as demonstrated by this latest and most cowardly defense of an indefensible tragedy.
Whatever happened to the civil discourse President Obama asked for after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords?
"This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him," Holder said, according to the Times. "Both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we're both African-American."
No, we don't know, but we've heard it all before including how the Tea Party was essentially a racially motivated response to the election of the first African-American president.
Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., an African-American Republican and Tea Party favorite who was elected in the electoral tsunami of 2010 prompted by President Obama's policies, and not his ethnicity, thinks Holder's cry of racism is an attempt to intimidate Holder's critics as it was used to intimidate President Obama's critics.
West says Holder can't logically assign race as a motivation behind the criticisms for his handling of Operation Fast and Furious.
"What Fast and Furious has to do with is misleading the Congress and the American people about what you knew about this program, and if you did not know anything about this program, then who's in charge of the Department of Justice?" West said in remarks to the Daily Caller.
"It has nothing to do with your race — it has everything to do with competence, with your character and with your ability to lead the Department of Justice."
After hiding your incompetence, Mr. Holder, behind a blizzard of obfuscation regarding Fast and Furious, denying any knowledge of it and refusing to take any responsibility for it, you now shamefully hide behind your race.
In a February 2009 speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Eric Holder said that "in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards" and that "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
Talking about race is one thing, pointing fingers and crying racism is quite another.
We would suggest, Mr. Holder, it is you who are the coward.
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