Things are starting to look really bad for U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose continued presence in Obama's White House cabinet may prove a devastating liability to the Democratic ticket in November.
When politicians like Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney call for Holder's resignation, the chattering classes yawn, and rightfully so. Last month, a top adviser to Mitt Romney blurted out on national television that he would simply change positions on some issues after the primary, and shake up his old positions "like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."
With such a mercenary attitude, it's easy to dismiss the former governor's calls as political grandstanding for no other purpose than rallying his base to come out and vote for him. Likewise, when many party-line stalwarts in the GOP call for Holder's head, it's not hard to imagine that the Attorney General is in more trouble for having the wrong letter next to his name than he is for any actual malfeasance. But when a politician as principled and independent as Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) adds his voice to the growing chorus of calls for resignation, pundits should take notice.
Over the weekend, a spokesman for the freshman congressman from Michigan told The Daily Caller that Amash believes Eric Holder should resign over the scandal surrounding the Justice Department's incomprehensibly reckless Operation Fast and Furious, in which, "Over 2,000 weapons, including AK-47s and .50 caliber rifles, plus ten thousand rounds of ammo were deliberately allowed by ATF to go to drug cartels so they could be tracked. Almost comically, the tracking device on the weapons was a GPS bought at Radio Shack. Yet, the battery life was only three months, making it impossible to know where the guns were after the batteries died." Amash is the 124th House member to call for Holder's resignation and/or sign a House resolution of "no confidence" in Holder as the nation's attorney general.
Again, when the typical partisan voices call for the resignation of an embattled figure across the aisle, just as likely as not, they're doing nothing more than saying their lines in the endless kabuki theater that is partisan politics in America today. But Justin Amash is different. When the statistically most independent member the Republican Party in the House of Representatives piles on, that's when observers might have reason to think that Republicans on to something serious. Amash's pick for the GOP's presidential nomination, Ron Paul, takes it even further. Remember, Ron Paul is just as likely to pick a fight with members of his own party as he is to take shots across the aisle. The man is no respecter of red, white, and blue animal logos on lapel pins.
So Ron Paul's got to have a more substantive reason for saying that Eric Holder "should be immediately fired and then there should be an investigation to find out if charges should be made." Coming from Paul, you know it isn't just a partisan swipe. There's a very good non-partisan reason that even the GOP's mavericks are asking for Holder to resign, and that's the belief that if we are vigilant in holding our officials responsible, maybe one day we might live in a world where the government doesn't sell guns to violent criminals.