“A page is missing:” The Resignation of Eric Holder

The Department of Justice, that institution once presided over by a Kennedy, and watched over by many of America’s greatest lawyer, has a motto worth reading. "Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur" Which means in normal talk “Who Pursues For Lady Justice.”

In the recent months of its existence however, there have been questions from all sides of the political spectrum about its handling of various issues, including Fast and Furious years ago, and in more recent times his handling of pot, guns, and gay marriage.

Barak Obama’s is an administration that has been rocked with scandals, from the alleged IRS targeting of Tea Party groups to the health care rollout that went less than swimmingly. More like drowningly. The overseer of that fiasco, although admittedly it was not entirely her fault, Kathrine Sebelius, resigned earlier this year with one last glitch. Finding, in her speech, that “Unfortunately, a page is missing.”

Eric Holder served and serves on the same cabinet, and, unlike Kathrine, he has been held in contempt of Congress by the House of Representatives, and has been called all sorts of things and been accused of all sorts of charges. At one point the screen behind the FOX News panelists, with a picture of Holder stated “Department of Injustice.”

His resignation has been called for, for months, and yet Holder, the first African-American attorney-general serving under the first African-American President of the United States of America, stuck it out. As his tenure wore on, he fell under fire for his crack downs on the press, which ignited a fire storm from the one part of the country every politician who wants a future has to keep happy- the media.

The drama continued, and finally the missing page of the story was found today, when Eric Holder resigned his position. He will stay on until a replacement is found, but now he is a lame duck in many regards. Eric Holder came on the scene from private practice around six years ago and leaped immediately into controversy, and kept on doing so right up until now. He will depart Washington with his president being disapproved of by over half the nation, and nearly two-thirds thinking the entire country is headed in the wrong direction and downhill.

Republicans, in issuing statements about his resignation, made it abundantly clear that by them at least, and probably by the Democrats that also criticized him in his tenure, he will not be missed.

Andrew C. Abbott