I make the case against fighting him here: Don’t Fall For It
(http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009010207/don-t-fall-it-0)

“The Republicans are attacking Barack Obama’s nomination
of Eric Holder as Attorney General. It’s a strategic battle. If the
conservatives win, it energizes the base for future battles. If the
conservatives lose, they are driven farther into their corner. That’s
why Karl Rove chose the battleground here, on fertile Clintonian soil.
The answer for progressives is to play this one like a team.”

In the case of the FALN pardon, this post makes a devastating case. But
the LA Time article relied on also contains an opposing point of view.

“Clemency was supported at the time by a range of
politically influential people who believed it would help bridge a
divide with Puerto Ricans who had long resisted U.S. dominion of the
island. The advocates included Carter, who had granted clemency to some
FALN members himself; several Nobel Peace Prize laureates; some members
of Congress; and Puerto Rican community leaders, many of whom met
personally with Holder.”

I’m no expert on the FALN and I know nothing about Puerto Rican
politics. But Jimmy Carter supported this clemency.

And the prosecutor in charge of the Mark Rich prosecution supports the
Holder nomination.

The big picture is this: I don’t think we should be litigating these
long dead cases, on which reasonable people can differ.

And I don’t think we should amplify conservative oppostion. Agree or not
about these pardons, this is not a wise fight to pick. The conservatives want to bloody Obama’s nose about something, anything; we shouldn’t help them.

so i’ll be brief. first, it seemed reasonable to offer information that i felt rather pertinent to the subject at hand. not central, and certainly not central to the legal distinctions. but certainly pertinent in understanding the overall political picture of that particular pardon. the political picture may not be relevant to holder’s role, and i stand corrected on that count. but i think we’d be wise to question the motive of the times reporters and the various sources involved. if they have an agenda, they may not be entirely truthful; it does appear that they were a bit one-sided. and i’ll say it again, though i’ve not been thrilled about the holder nomination either, i’m also very concerned about republicans’ intentions to sabotage that very position for so many of their own reasons.

wrt my concerns on reactionary comments coming from bmaz. i’d have done better to explain that the tone can be off-putting, diminishing persuasive power. it comes out of the gate before the data do, and seems to narrow the scope, both in terms of perspective and of courtesies. the latter seems particularly unnecessary.

fwiw, i’m not a therapist; i’m a diagnostician and researcher. but my comments were hardly from a professional observation; merely human.

and a fellow mac lover.

No way is this guy changing anything. We need someone above reproach. Period.

We can do better.

I see you’ve already nutshelled them too. Can’t say as I’m surprised with either, considering with all the evidence that has actually made it to the public sphere that there have been no actions taken by State bars that I’ve heard of. Kinda figure that such actions would have gotten a LOT of press.

In short, unfortunately, I share your profound lack of enthusiasm and have little true cause for hope that Justice or even Law will prevail.

It appears to me that we have already lost, barring action by the People that I’m dissallowed from bringing up/suggesting.

I left off the link to his memo
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/kris.fisa.pdf

from that legal times site.

I missed the place where Kris, who issued the memo on why “teh program” was illegal, tried to “justify vacuum cleaner surveillance of calls at U.S. switches” He might have done it, but I didn’t see that. What I recollect was his example that, for instance, if you had some horrible threat re: say, a bomb at a major sporting event venue (it might have been something else, but it was along those lines) you might morally and technically be able to dragnet all the calls from that area, but it would be illegal.

I don’t say you’re wrong with what he claimed, but I don’t remember him going down those roads and I kind of remember the opposite – that he argued sweeping up communications willy nilly was illegal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..02360.html

A former senior national security lawyer at the Justice Department is highly critical of some of the Bush administration’s key legal justifications for warrantless spying, saying that many of the government’s arguments are weak and unlikely to be endorsed by the courts, according to documents released yesterday.

David S. Kris, a former associate deputy attorney general who now works at Time Warner Inc., concludes that a National Security Agency domestic spying program is clearly covered by a 1978 law governing clandestine surveillance, according to a legal analysis and e-mails sent to current Justice officials.

…
“In sum, I do not believe the statutory law will bear the government’s weight,” Kris wrote in his paper, dated Jan. 25. “. . . I do not think Congress can be said to have authorized the NSA surveillance.”

You may well have followed more closely and no more about his positions than I do, in which case I hope you expand them, bc in trying to find a fast link to his 20+ page memo from back when, I instead found this:

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/…..ision.html

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to announce soon the nomination of David Kris, a former high-ranking national security lawyer in the Justice Department, to head the department’s National Security Division, according to a source close to the transition.

Comey says: *hey, I worked on Rich and was shocked by Bill Clinton* (not mentioning anything about stacks of naked, hooded men and tortured bodies tossed in unmarked graves, but it’s nice to see the general theme current and former USAs being able to be shocked by things Dem politicians do for money continues to hold) He then mentions supervising criminal investigations of Clinton for the pardons. So here’s the deal – ya know, sometimes good folks make bad judgments, “significant mistakes” even, like Holder did with Rich (let’s not mention Padilla, Higazy or Arar for now, ‘kay?) But where you have a “smart, decent, humble man” who loves the Department (reminder – we are still talking here about Holder) then what the hay. Forgive/forget. He’ll probably be better at running the dept what with having some mistakes under his belt – not that I’m advocating mistakes as a basis for running the DOJ. Have a nice day.

Lamm – Holder is glowy goodness. As a judge, as a lawyer, as a DOJ official. Like a champion Lab, he’s got a good temperament and integrity, unlike a Lab he can analyze legal issues. The Prez will be able to rely on him for independent advice (okay, so he’s like a Lab with a Dear Abby column). Things are challenging, so having a guy like Holder is good. Esp bc he can be relied upon to appropriately exercise “prosecutorial discretion” And somehow or another, his prosecutorial discretion will have some kind of link to our economy (really?) “At a time when our international relations and domestic economic situation are most challenging, it is important to have an Attorney General like Eric”

And here’s the “troops are assembling” letter:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/re…..awyers.pdf
with Barr, Toensing, Terwilliger, et al They like to include the point that the President’s pardon power is clear and plenary.

I can’t imagine that Holder’s nomination won’t go through and I really don’t know that if he didn’t, the “back up” would be anyone substantively different, but more to the point, I’m not sure who you could put in the slot that would be really committed to prosecuting Executive branch and DOJ crime, or who they would prosecute them with (kind of the same problem Obama had with the CIA pic – right now there’s not too many DOJ picks who haven’t been in bed with torture and a whole long list of other Exec branch crimes and DOJ lawyers misreps to courts, obstruction, cover ups of misreps and of destroyed or not saved docs and info, etc.)

He is writing in support of Holder’s nomination. He explains his own background with Rich’s case and gives Holder a bit of a tsk tsk for his work on the pardon, but then he forgives him.