No Longer Just

In the 1966 film A Man For All Seasons, which depicts Sir Thomas More’s steadfast disapproval of King Henry VIII’s marital infidelities, More stirringly defends the rule of law. Rebutting his son-in-law, who says he would hypothetically “cut down every law in England” to find the devil, More asks, “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”

More argues that abandoning equal enforcement of the law imperils all citizens. Unfortunately for today’s United States, this is exactly what John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky say the Department of Justice is doing under Attorney General Eric Holder. To this enterprise, Fund brings tireless reporting, and Spakovsky brings his own experience in the Justice Department (as counsel to the assistant attorney for civil rights) and contacts therein.

Together, they have assembled a brief yet persuasive argument that, as one former career lawyer put it, “Holder is the worst person to hold the position of attorney general since the disgraced John Mitchell, who went to jail as a result of the Watergate scandal.” The authors guide us through Holder’s unique judicial malpractice: his Department’s long Supreme Court losing streak; his convenient memory lapses, lack of knowledge, and outright lies about what he knew and when he knew it; and his becoming the first-ever attorney general to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives.

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