"Lynch Holder"

I think, if you haven't, spend some time reading Jane Mayer's piece on Eric Holder:

On December 5th, several hundred people gathered in Foley Square, in lower Manhattan, and withstood a drenching rainstorm for two hours in order to send a message to Attorney General Eric Holder. A JumboTron, set up by the protesters, played clips of Holder's recent testimony before Congress, in which he explained his decision to hold the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--the self-proclaimed planner of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--and four co-conspirators in the colonnaded federal courthouse flanking the square, rather than in a military commission at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Members of the crowd shouted at the screen: "Holder's gotta go!"; "Arrogant bastard!"; "Communist!"

Greg Manning, whose wife, Laura, was severely burned in the World Trade Center attacks, stood before the crowd and said, "Thousands are already dead because of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's choices. We do not want to see . . . hundreds of thousands dead because of the Attorney General's choices."

Andrew McCarthy, the former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, also gave a speech, declaring that Holder didn't "understand what rule of law has always been in wartime." He said, "It's military commissions. It's not to wrap our enemies in our Bill of Rights."

"Traitor!" someone shouted.

Edith Lutnick, who works for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, told the crowd, "My brother, Gary, lost his life that day." The 9/11 victims, she said, "were murdered by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we do not want him and his fellow-terrorists tried in that building. . . . We need to tell Eric Holder that we will be victims no more."

"Lynch Holder!" an onlooker cried.

This protest, which Mayer covered and talks about in detail in this Fresh Air interview, is the work of, among others, Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol. As colorful as this opening scene is, it isn't the worst of it. I came away wishing I could vote for Holder, but at the same time marveling at the forces--from within the Obama administration to without--arrayed against him.

What you get from Mayer's piece is a tangible sense of exactly how hard it's going to be to restore ourselves to any kind of pre-9/11 footing. I'm just not convinced that we're done with torture. I think that the Obama administration--should push come to shove--is done with torture, but I wouldn't put much money on that. That's a slight on Obama, because I think he bears some responsibility, as one of Mayer's sources says, to "lead us out of fear." But that said, it's also a slight on us. This is who we are. We would have torture done in our name, as long as we can call it something else, and as long as it protects our right to a home theater and everyday low prices.

As a side-note, I want to say that Mayer is one of my professional heroes. I can't think of another journalist whose done more to keep the ugly questions and the messy national security debates arising out of 9/11 in the forefront. And she hasn't let up with the Democrats in. Read her piece on Obama's use of predator drones. Regrettably, I always leave her work thinking, "My God, we're screwed and we don't even know it."