Obama’s Replacement for Attorney General Eric Holder Should be a Republican: Instapundit

Writing in
USA Today, Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, offers provocative
advice to President Obama when it comes to naming a new attorney
general: Reach across the aisle.

This frequently happens with secretaries
of Defense, and it has been of benefit to the administrations
that have done it. FDR
picked a Republican, Henry Stimson, to be secretary of War in
1940, and that meant that the war — and the war’s casualties —
became a bipartisan matter instead of fodder for partisan attacks.
President Obama retained George W. Bush’s Defense secretary, Robert
Gates, for most of his first term. He replaced Gates with another
Republican, Chuck
Hagel, in that position.

Having a Defense secretary from the other party makes war
bipartisan, and reassures members of the opposition that the powers
of the sword aren’t being abused. Likewise, naming an attorney
general from the opposite party would tend to make the
administration of justice bipartisan, and would provide
considerable reassurance, as Holder’s tenure in office emphatically
did not, that the powers of law enforcement were not being abused
in service of partisan ends. In an age of all-encompassing criminal
laws, and pervasive government spying, that’s a big deal.

I’m not sure I want war to be bipartisan but the idea of a
Republican AG would really restart any number of conversations that
have stalled out or stopped due to acrimony all around.

Reynolds provides a useful capsule summary of how the position
is usually filled:

…in choosing a friend, Obama was following in the footsteps of
presidents going all the way back to George Washington, who named
Revolutionary War comrades-in-arms to the slot. John F. Kennedy
named his brother Robert to be attorney general, and Richard Nixon
named his law partner, John Mitchell. In many ways, this makes
sense: The attorney general of the United States is at the top of
the law enforcement apparatus, and in that position, you want
someone you can trust.

But while presidents may feel better having an intimate, if not
a crony, in charge of law enforcement, that kind of closeness
raises questions for the rest of us. 

Read the whole thing here.

And read Reason on Holder’s legacy here,

here, and
here.