Douchebag of the Week (4/13/14): Eric Holder, Victim of Racism...

Pity Attorney General Eric Holder.

No, seriously.

It must be tough to live in an America which is so vilely racist that a member of a formerly-enslaved race can rise to become the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in all the land, with, apparently, no intention or clue as to how to actually, you know...enforce the law. Or maybe even understand it.

I mean, it can only have happened in someplace less-racist, like, say, Zimbabwe or China, that the son of Caribbean immigrants could grow up in the slums of New York, live a life of abject poverty in a hardscrabble fight for a decent life, be deprived of opportunity by the pernicious legacy of the slave trade, and then, by dint of hard work, inspiration, a do-or-die spirit, manage to raise himself up by his bootstraps to complete law school, to become a judge, engage in national politics, and then reach the very pinnacle of success by virtue of sheer competence and skill.

Yeah, that couldn't happen in racist America.

Then again, that's not Eric Holder's story, either.

For while Eric Holder is the son of Caribbean immigrants, and did, indeed, grow up in the Bronx, it would appear as if his parents were businesspeople. Real estate agents, as it turns out. A profession that the supporters of Holder's boss might refer to as "One Percenters". And then, of course, comes the Affirmative Action, something I'm certain the people of less-racist Afghanistan or Mozambique are very familiar with, you know, being far more egalitarian and fairer and stuff than America. Holder was selected to enter a program for "gifted" children at 10 (in Congo, they take you at 4!), graduated Stuyvesant High School (one of the better ones here in New York), and then Columbia University, where he received his J.D. before embarking upon a life of "public service".

Now, I used the term "Affirmative Action" in that last paragraph. Some people will have a problem with that, but I could give a fuck. I used it for a particular reason. Because if you take it at face value that Eric Holder was ever "gifted" in the sense that word usually implies you're probably trying right this very moment to figure out if maybe the definition changed while you were in the bathroom last.

Does Eric Holder strike you as "gifted"? Does he strike you as particularly bright? If the answer to both questions is a resounding "Fuck NO!", then you have to conclude that someone this stupid didn't get through Stuyvesant and Columbia based on his own merits and talents.

If you were still clinging to the mistaken impression that Holder was a genius, then your illusions would have had to have been shattered after last week's virtuoso performance of self-pitying douchebaggery. If they haven't been, then you need psychiatric help...and drugs...and a padded room.

Because, unlike enlightened Tanzania or Vanuatu, only in racist America can a man who claims to be the victim of racism go to a nakedly-racist venue -- in this case, "Reverend" Al Sharpton's "National Action Network" (three lies, same great, low price) conference and cry about the prevalence of...racism.

Eric Holder would have you believe that he's the victim of a racist country that does everything in it's power to undermine the success of the African-American. This is, of course, liberal (small 'l' intentional) boilerplate, but it has also been the rallying cry of the Obama Administration since Day One. To oppose the policies of  the (half-)black President Obama, to criticize his (black) Attorney General, to analyze the vacation and spending habits of the (black) First Lady, is inherently racist and somehow morally wrong.

And it grates upon people, like Holder, that after having to endure centuries of second-class status in a country which prides itself on having gotten beyond racism -- after all, it has elected a (half-)black President, has a black Attorney General, and has had black Secretaries of State and black Supreme Court judges, and members of Congress, Generals, people at the very pinnacle of power -- because they have lost the protective cover of that former second-class status (what George W. Bush referred to as the "soft bigotry of low expectations") Holder and many like him are finally figuring out what White Men have known for centuries:

Competence, or lack thereof, has consequences. Especially in a democratic republic where people are free to express their opinions and there is a well-funded, 24-hour media machine that has a lot of airtime to fill. The world has changed.

Twenty or thirty years ago, Eric Holder could be an incompetent doofus in government service, and no one would know about it. Now they do.

Twenty or thirty years ago, Eric Holder could have skated through public life largely on Affirmative Action and an inflated resume that was bereft of actual achievements divorced from politics. Not anymore.

Twenty or thirty years ago, Eric Holder could give a speech at Al Sharpton's place, and no one but the sympathetic black press -- which even black folks largely ignore -- would have reported on it. Yes, but that was yesterday.

What Holder and Obama and the people who scream racist the loudest these days are really pining for, above all things, was the good old days when racism was REAL, and when people weren't judged on, as Dr. King wished, the content of their character, but rather their skin color, which brought with it a truckload of excuses for failure. It wasn't the greatest, maybe, but it did have the virtue of allowing one to dodge responsibility, the requirement to produce any tangible results, or the necessity to live up to a standard.

But enough of the psychoanalysis of the Modern Black Racist, and let's take a look at why Holder and his boss are so, dare I say it?, uppity, about the consequences of the society they've both advocated for their entire lives.

Eric Holder is not some nameless, faceless, anonymous bureaucrat lodged deep within the bowels of the Department of Losing Important Paperwork; he's the Attorney General of the United States. He is the visible face of the American Justice System, and it is his job to ensure the people of the United States that the Law is being Enforced, fairly and apolitically. He sits at the head of a law enforcement apparatus which includes the FBI and ATF, among others, police forces which hold the distinction of having jurisdiction that crosses state borders, and which are guided by Federal, rather than State, Law.

These are not just police forces, involved in that kind of stuff you see on CSI: Miami, or Law and Order, either; they're also intelligence services, and have what are, for all intents and purposes, paramilitary arms, small armies of well-armed, lavishly-funded, soldier/commando/cops who answer to the Attorney General.

Holder is in charge of a great deal of America's anti-terrorism efforts, and armed with the Patriot Act, he effectively has the ability to name anyone as an enemy of the state, and therefore, subject them to all sorts of law-enforcement and intelligence-type processes without due process.

Holder is in charge of a network of tens of thousands of U.S. Attorneys, all over the country, giving him the ability to prosecute anyone, at anytime, so long as he can find a convenient excuse and get it past a judge.

The man wields enormous power. His boss has much the same power, but has added to it an entire regulatory and military system, up to and including, nuclear weapons.

But the country that would entrust that sort of power to the descendants of African slaves is somehow racist?

The problem began in earnest for Holder when he ascended to the throne. Having largely grown up in public service at a time when African-Americans in high-level government office were simply window dressing, a ploy trotted out by democrats to suggest that they were a more inclusive lot than they truly are, Holder was never subjected to the scrutiny that comes with responsibility. He wasn't expected to actually have to do anything; his value, politically, was always to be the black guy standing next to ___________ in the picture.

However, things change once you go from convenient racial prop to Da Man. Once you become Attorney General, President, Chief Justice, and so forth, people start expecting things from you. One thing they expect from you without exception is answers to their questions. People who have spent a lifetime in government service without responsibilities or having to produce results, get touchy when you start asking them questions.

Because then they're in danger of revealing just how stupid they truly are.

And because neither Eric Holder nor his boss can admit that they're stupid and grossly incompetent, they also cannot admit that they truly preferred the days when no one actually expected anything of them. In other words, they pine for the days when racism actually made certain aspects of their lives easier; they have to find some excuse to explain away their inability to be truthful, their inability to answer questions they get paid to know the answer to, to avoid looking simply foolish and to explain what the purposes of their policies are. They can't, and so they fall back upon racism, again.

The sword has two edges, you see. One edge is protective -- "You shouldn't expect anything from So-and-So, he's black, you know" -- and the other is a weapon -- "You can't say/do/ask that! It's racist, and you should be ashamed!"

However, the rules of the game have changed. Society has changed, and notions of racial inferiority are long in the past. The word "racist" has been flung around so casually and usually by the most racist people you know, that it has no power to evoke shame or impose silence, anymore.

So, to ask Eric Holder questions about why the ATF allowed Mexican drug cartels to buy firearms in America that were later used to murder hundreds of Mexicans, and several Americans; to ask what the FBI knows about Benghazi; to insist that the Justice Department tell Congress what it is doing and how it does it,  is racist because Holder can't tell you why, either because a) he doesn't actually KNOW, thus showing his inability to do his job reasonably well, or b) he DOES know, but for political reasons that would reflect poorly upon his boss, cannot give you an answer.

So, he just claims that asking him these questions is the manifestation of racism. He believes that crying racism -- and why shouldn't he? He's only been conditioned his entire life and career to think so -- absolves him of responsibility.

To oppose a policy of this administration on general principles, ideological grounds, real differences in outlook or policy, is likewise, racist, if you ask Eric Holder because a) racism, and b) racism. After all, the man who advocates and allegedly crafted the policies is a minority.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter.

In liberal (small 'l' intentional) doctrine it is axiomatic that certain people, or groups of people -- African-Americans, Women, Homosexuals, Hispanics -- are victims of a virulently racist White Heterosexual Male-dominated culture, and therefore, to expect anything from them in the way of competence, forthrightness, honesty, integrity, organization, intelligence, is inherently racist/sexist/homophobic. The only way to correct this grave injustice is to give jobs to these members of oppressed groups in the highest circles of power, to even things out.

Whether they are actually qualified, whether they can actually do the job in question, is irrelevant: the very fact that they have had a title bestowed upon them, and can enjoy the trappings of power, is just compensation for centuries of oppression and repression, and to hold them to any standard is simply yet another manifestation of the White Heterosexual Male impulse to bully and control everyone.

Take a look at some of the rogues gallery of the democratic party that has been Modern Washington these last two or three decades:

Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Susan Rice, Janet Napolitano, Janet Reno, Patty Murray, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Barack Obama, Elijah Cummings, Major Owens, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Samantha Powers, Lois Lerner, Elena Kagan, Valerie Jarret, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Elizabeth Warren, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton.

Now, ask yourself the following questions about any of them:

Does any of them strike you as particularly competent? Even possessed of the same intelligence you'd expect to find in an Irish Setter?
Of course not. And the liberal (small 'l' intentional) response, reflexively applied to that answer, is that it is to be condemned as some manifestation of a baser motive.

In today's racist America, only White Heterosexual men are ever held to any sort of standard. In today's racist, intolerant America, if you're white and show any sort of incompetence you are to be immediately fired, but the black guy stays to avoid a lawsuit; if you show any kind of indication of having an independent thought process, you should lose your CEO position, be hounded publicly into silence or oblivion, have protesters show up on your front lawn bearing torches; you should be continually harassed by nuisance suits and false allegations of criminal wrongdoing whenever feasible; You are attacked for your political beliefs, your religious beliefs; your success is something you somehow stole from someone else. You have your mental state questioned publicly and continually.

You have to suffer these things because only White Heterosexual men are ever guilty in racist America.

Don't get me started on how that reeks of racial profiling, but that's for another screed.

And, of course, if you make the point that, if it is desirable that our public officials (elected or appointed) should be competent, intelligent, qualified, and diligent, able to express the aims and consequences of the policies they either advocate for or enforce, to act rationally and with equanimity, then perhaps it's best if we simply leave all the positions of responsibility to White Heterosexual Men, since they're the only ones ever held to such standards, you'd be denounced as...wait for it...RACIST.

So, Mr. Holder I say to you lighten up. And yeah, I mean that figuratively. Come to think of it, fucking literally, too, only in the sense that it's way past time for you to put your Big Boy pants on and start acting like a responsible, respectable public official. I know in some precincts of Black America you'd be condemned for acting white (nothing inherently racist in that notion, huh?), but you know what?, that comes with the paycheck. If you don't want it or can't hack it, then have the good grace to go away.

Your story is one that can only happen in "racist" America. If it sticks in your craw so fucking much, I'm sure they'd love to have you in Zululand or someplace more amenable to your stupidity.

You wanted equality. Now you have it. Not all it's cracked up to be, is it?

History will judge you, Mr. Holder, and judge your Half-breed Reichsfuhrer (you keep forgetting he's HALF WHITE, too) as well, and I reckon it shall not be kind to either of you. You see, it's not enough to simply want the outward appearances of having "made it"; sometimes, you have to do something of value, other than whine and bitch about how hard it is to be you. We've had six years of people whining and bitching, and very little in the way of justifiable or effective actions, and the people we had a right to expect better of have done little but proven themselves woefully inadequate to the task.

Especially you.

So, because you're a clueless douche who doesn't realize that his very presence undercuts the logic of his own fucking argument, for being a stonewalling-do-nothing-know-nothing-take-the-paycheck-and-run bureaucratic dipshit, for being the "good soldier" and taking the unnecessary hits for your even-more clueless and incompetent president, and for having the sheer audacity to denounce people as racists while speaking at a forum sponsored by one of the biggest bigots who ever lived, I present you, Mr. Attorney general, with this Week's Douchebag of the Week Award.

And a gift certificate to KFC, muthafucka.

I hope you fucking choke on both.