Opinion: In today’s pages: Eric Holder, pirates, Fannie Mae and World Toilet Day
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The Times’ editorial board gets right to it, blasting President-elect Barack Obama’s first choice for his cabinet. According to the board, Eric H. Holder Jr. has the resume to be Attorney General, but not the perceived independence:
[I]n the aftermath of the reckless politicization of the Justice Department under George W. Bush, the wisest course for Barack Obama would be to choose an eminent lawyer who shares the administration’s legal philosophy but can’t be caricatured as a presidential insider. For all of his impressive qualities, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. doesn’t fit that description.
Wow, a two-fer -- going after Obama and Bush in the same piece! Now that’s editorial gold. Elsewhere in the stack, the board urges Congress and the incoming administration to start thinking now about how to eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are due to emerge from federal conservatorship in a little more than a year. And with Somali pirates now attacking oil tankers, the board says it’s time for the rest of the world to tackle the problems in the buccaneers’ home country.
Over on the op-ed page, columnist Tim Rutten writes about a new federal report that confirmed the existence of a chillingly widespread ailment long denied by Republican and Democratic administrations: Gulf War syndrome. Science writer Margaret Wertheim observes World Toilet Day -- oddly enough, it doesn’t coincide with World Newspaper Day -- by noting some the benefits that flushable chamber pots have produced for society (while also lamenting that many communities have yet to obtain them). And author Dave Zinn writes about the increasing politicization of U.S. athletes brought about by Obama’s campaign against John McCain:
Howard Cosell called it ‘rule No. 1 of the Jockocracy’: the idea that sports and politics must never mix. This last election season though, that iron wall separating the two worlds wasn’t merely breached, it was flattened.
2001 file photo of Eric Holder is by Mark Wilson/Newsmakers.