by Glynn Wilson

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The nation’s top lawyer came all the way down from Washington D.C. to little old Alabama on Tuesday and gave a tightly controlled hour-long presentation honoring the 50th anniversary and influence of Harper Lee’s classic To Kill A Mockingbird at the University of Alabama’s law school. But he celebrated that story about justice by taking no questions from the media or the audience, as President Barack Obama did in a town hall meeting on Monday.

In his remarks focusing on the theme of a literary truth derived from the book, the theme that “an individual can make a difference” if they focus on “doing the right thing,” Holder never mentioned the criminal prosecution of the British Petroleum corporation and its partner in the crimes against nature in the Gulf of Mexico, Halliburton, which I would have asked about if there was anything resembling democracy left in the US of A.

Nor did Holder have a single encouraging word about the prospects for ending further political prosecutions against Democrats out of Montgomery by Bush appointed U.S. attorney Laure Canary, the wife of conservative Business Council president Bill Canary, who worked for the Bush family and with political hit boy Karl Rove to take over the Alabama Supreme Court in the 1990s — a political feat the liberal trial lawyers in Alabama have yet to figure out how to counter.

Holder’s remarks about ‘Mockingbird’ are relevant to reflect upon further in a column perhaps, once the transcript comes out. But the locked-down nature of his appearance does not inspire confidence that he truly understands either the dilemma we face as a state and country in obtaining justice, or his willingness to pay more than lip service to the rights of Americans to be secure in their homes.

If he allows Canary to remain in her post and bring more indictments against Democrats in the state House and Senate, and perhaps even the Democratic Party’s standard bearer Ron Sparks — before the Nov. 2 election — the blight on his term as attorney general may rival the blight on Obama’s presidency, stained forever by the ineffectual response to the largest environmental disaster in American history.

Franklin Roosevelt’s legacy as a great president may be stained by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and Abraham Lincoln’s legacy may be blighted by his suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, as Holder pointed out in his remarks. What he did not face up to is that the judgement of his tenure — and this presidents’ — may very well come down to how he responds to the Gulf drilling disaster.

As long as there continue to be reports of BP contractors secretly spraying chemical dispersants and denying the press and the public access to beaches still tainted with oil, the reputation of this administration may as well rest in the hands of a few conservative Tea Party activists, many of whom would just as soon kill Obama and Holder as look at them.

In this hostile political climate, one can’t help but wonder what is stopping the Chicago political machine, which spawned Obama, from using their newfound power to take out of a few of their chief opponents, such as Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.

I mean, what I’m wondering is, while sitting here sipping a Yuengling after the trip to Tuscaloosa, how many stories do we have to endure about these so-called “average Americans” in the Tea Party, who think it is quite alright to openly advocate the assassination of the president — without facing water boarding, much less arrest or even a visit downtown for questioning?

All while the activist left, a.k.a. the “professional left,” which got Obama elected in the first place, BTW, can’t even get a question in to the attorney general in a public forum? Just sayin’ it makes one wonder if the right people are in office — with the right priorities on their minds.

The picture is so cloudy some days it is hard to tell for sure.

Related Coverage

TN: Holder Sees No Tension Between Security, Liberty?

CW: Attorney General Speaks on ‘Mockingbird” 50th

Text of Holder’s Remarks

by Glynn Wilson

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was lobbied to drop the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman during his trip to Birmingham Thursday for the swearing in of Joyce White Vance as U.S. attorney for the state’s northern district, sources say.

Several people, including Alabama Democratic Party officials, spoke to Holder on behalf of Siegelman, and about firing U.S. Attorney Leura Canary — the prosecutor married to Karl Rove’s political ally Bill Canary of the conservative Business Council of Alabama — according to sources present for the swearing in.

Barry Ragsdale, an attorney who is a friend of the Vances and has been associated with the Over the Mountain Democrats in the past, acted as master of ceremonies for the swearing in. Apparently he is a funny guy, and made several jokes, including poking fun at Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller of Alabama’s middle district, the federal judge who presided in the controversial case against Siegelman and his co-defendant Richard Scrushy.

“I’m glad Karl Rove gave you permission to be here,” Ragsdale quipped, according to the Birmingham News account of the swearing in.

Rove, of course, was the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, who recently testified in an investigation of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on political prosecutions and political firings of U.S. attorneys.

U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance

Vance, who was chief of the Northern District’s appellate division from October 2005 until she was named interim U.S. attorney in June, first joined the Birmingham office as an assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting criminal cases, in 1991.

She replaces U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, who served a controversial term after being appointed to the office by President Bush. Vance was sworn in by U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, who recently replaced U.W. Clemon as the chief judge in Birmingham.

Vance graduated from Bates College in Lewiston Maine in 1982 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985. After law school, she practiced with the litigation group at Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, and Kahn in Washington, D.C., according to her official biography on the Justice Department Website.

Vance moved to Birmingham in 1987, where she joined Bradley, Arant, Rose, and White. She is married to Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance Jr., the son of Robert S. Vance, formerly a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who was one of two victims of pipe bombs sent to targets in Georgia, Alabama and Florida in the late 1980s.

On the eve of the big show in Washington, the first Supreme Court nomination hearings of the Obama era, it is interesting to wonder why the New York Times chose to use this photo of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions without identifying him. That’s the back of Attorney General Eric Holder’s head on the left, along with an unknown aide and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The photo did not run on a story about the Supreme Court, where Sessions will be in the national limelight this week.

It ran on a story about the new pressure facing President Obama to reverse himself on looking forward, not back (a story we broke back in November), by ramping up investigations into the Bush-era security programs — despite the political risks. Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney.

On Fox News Sunday, Feinstein called it a “big problem.” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on “This Week” on ABC, agreed that the secrecy “could be illegal” and demanded an inquiry.

Feinstein Suggests CIA Concealment Broke Law

This is too rich. Stay tuned this week…

Judge Clemon, a highly respected jurist and one of the first African American judges in the American South, took this unusual step because he felt duty bound to report corruption that occurred on his watch, according to an announcement from the non-profit Velvet Revolution.

This development comes days after detailed evidence revealed that Siegelman’s trial judge, Mark Fuller, was chosen to preside over the trial because he had a “grudge” against Siegelman which bordered on hatred because Siegelman appointed an investigator to look into Fuller’s shady activities.

Siegelman Deserves New Trial Because of Judge’s ‘Grudge’, Evidence Shows

Moreover, the new evidence makes a strong case that Judge Fuller labors under conflicts of interest because he owns a majority share in Doss Aviation, which receives hundreds of millions in contracts from the military and has ties to CIA activities.

Last week, VR called for the removal of Siegelman’s prosecutor, Laura Canary, and for an investigation into the activities of Judge Fuller, both which now have been echoed by Chief Judge Clemon in his letter to Eric Holder.

“What more does it take, Mr. Holder, to clear the stench of corruption from this case?,” the release asks, and then demands: “Step in and enforce the rule of law, now!”