"We owe the American people a reckoning": Eric Holder vs. Karl Rove

Some commentators have suggested that Rove is doing this only to provide cover for some of George W. Bush's own questionable pardons, some of which have already violated Department of Justice policies regarding who is eligible for a presidential pardon. According to this analysis, Rove wants the public comment on Bush's pardons to be something like, "well Clinton did the same thing."

But Rove's opposition to Holder may run a little deeper than this.

In a speech delivered to the American Constitution Society in June 2008, Eric Holder emphasized a judicial philosophy that differs sharply with Karl Rove and the the ultra right view of the Constitution.

Holder described the Constitution as a unique founding document of US society, but ultimately an imperfect document. Citing its initial legalization of slavery and its refusal to give women the right to vote until the 20th century, Holder expressed the view that within the spirit of the Constitution and the ideals of the founders of the country "there is contained the capacity for change. The choices the founders made were not frozen in time." The concepts embodied in the Constitution, Holder said, allowed "the pursuit of a more perfect union."

This philosophical view of the legal system and the Constitution sharply diverge from the so-called strict constructionist view of the Constitution upheld by the right wing. Theoretically, the right wing believes the Constitution to be a static, unchanging document in which is contained all the legal precepts we need.

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