Sober Uncle Noam on Obama’s cabinet selections.

Chiquita = United Fruit = Banana Wars = Smedley Butler . . .

BUTLER: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

As to the motivations of a luminary like Holder and a legal/lobbying shop like Covington & Burling, the first bell that rings in my head is not, “the rights of the accused to competent representation.” It’s billable hours. Ding! Ding! Ding!

The letter of the law — black and white (more or less). The practice and application of the law — especially at the level of a “top shop” like C&B — infinite shades of gray and piles upon piles of green.

“Them that’s got the gold, makes the rules.”

~ Anonymous

“All my life I kept trying to go up in society. Where everything higher up was legal. But the higher I go, the crookeder it becomes. Where the hell does it end?”

~ Michael Corleone, Godfather III

Still, my personal bottom line on Obama’s choice of Holder . . . I tend to want to give them both the benefit of the doubt. I’m willing to wait to see Holder in action.

And, for me, the bellwether “rule of law” issue for the new Administration/AG is torture. I emphatically HOPE to see them adopt the game plan proposed by Scott Horton in the current issue of Harper’s, “Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration.” [sub. req. — buy the ‘zine!]

Alternatively, see Glenn Greenwald’s Salon Radio interview: Scott Horton on war crimes prosecutions:

GREENWALD: I spoke to Scott today on Salon Radio regarding this article, and we discussed:

* what distinguishes the Bush administration’s lawlessness from the isolated lawbreaking of past Presidents (”This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself”);

* why — of all the Bush crimes — torture is, in Scott’s words, “not only the crime that most clearly calls for prosecution but also the crime that is most likely to be successfully prosecuted”; [ding!, ding!, ding!]

* whether the limited retroactive immunity bestowed on war criminals by the Detainees Treatment Act and Military Commissions Act is a barrier to such prosecutions;

* whether it should be a defense for high level government officials that the Bush DOJ issued legal opinions authorizing these interrogation programs and asserting that they were legal;

* how the issuance of presidential pardons could be overcome;

* what the benefits are of beginning with a Truth Commission, rather than having the DOJ simply investigate and prosecute.

If, at Obama’s direction, Holder can step out of the gray/green world of fronting for corporate bad actors and [re-]establish — more clearly than ever before — bright-red and universal prohibitions against torture, I will cut the guy some slack.

Am I a chump, setting myself up for a fall? Will any of Obama’s Team Establishment deliver much more than incremental variations of more of the same? We’ll see.

At the risk of going off-topic… this observation about the divergent interests of the corporation (i.e. shareholders and employees) and its officers seems to be replaying in various ways these days. If banks are in need of a bailout, fine. But fire the officers and boards of directors that allowed them to get into trouble in the first place. If the car companies need a bailout fine, but again fire the officers and boards. If Obama really represents change, why is he surrounding himself with so many re-treads?

The political/economic elite of this country have brainwashed the public into believing that only a handful of people in the country are qualified for high level corporate and political positions. This is prima facie absurd in a country with a population over 300 million. It strains credulity to believe that the US is so bereft of talent, that we must continue to recycle those who have proven themselves to be ineffective or incompetent. I for one am more than ready to take a chance on the devils we don’t know rather than turning to the ones we do know.

He may have been assigned to it when he was an associate. We don’t know.

Why yes, as a matter of fact, we do know. And we know that your speculation is dead wrong and not the case. Holder was not some scrub associate and he was lead on the case. Exactly what excess of “pro bono” work are you talking about with respect to Holder. More rank peculation from what I can discern. Are you seriously analogizing the representation of the Chiquita cads with freaking pro bono work??? Please forward whatever you have been smoking.

Seriously, this take is so amusing that I literally wonder if you are not related to Eric Holder or something. Jeebus.

This takes nothing from Edwards’s remarkable achievements as a plaintiff’s lawyer. Successful civil litigation is exceedingly hard work.

It’s to say that Edwards as AG would be playing catchup ball continually. That’s no way to win the respect of DOJ lawyers, and Americans can’t afford such a learning curve now.

A guy who cheated on a wife with cancer is, furthermore, scarcely the best choice to inspire those fine lawyers still at the Department, some of whom are women, or to attract the best.

If you go over to the firm’s website and look at Holder’s bio, you’ll see that he has several specialties — and one of them is white collar defense and investigation. That may be why Obama is looking at him for this position — that he has a lot of experience in the area of white collar crime. And investigation.