Eric Holder Agonistes

So, Newsweek magazine has an article relating the internal struggle of Attorney General Eric Holder with regard to things like torture and illegal wiretapping. He is horrified at what has been done, but he understands Barack Obama's desire to cover all this stuff up so that he violate the constitution and the supervision of congress too move forward and not look back (2^nd and last graph of the article):

These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision."

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But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general's thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Department office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as "the dark side." He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was "shocked and saddened," he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America's name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.

Why are we seeing a report like this? What is driving the reports of how Eric Holder is agonizing over his dual obligations to enforce the law and to do the bidding of Barack Obama?

This is an attempt by Eric Holder to retain some dignity when he makes the wrong choice. He will not be appointing a special prosecutor, nor will he be authorizing any future investigations from within the Department of Justice on these matters, because it is politically inconvenient for Barack Obama and His Stupid^* Minions^™, and he wants to ensure that his reputation takes as small a hit as possible.

He is going to do the craven and political thing, and not the right thing, but he wants all of us to know, particularly those inside the Washington Beltway, that he really agonized over it.

^*It's stupid, because they do not realize that not prosecuting Republican law breakers will not create any bipartisanship, but rather, it will create a sense of impunity that will fuel 'Phant attacks against the President. We only have to look at Bill Clinton's experience, where his decision not to pursue Iran-Contra led to a heretofore unknown level of vitriol from the Republicans.