The Associated Press profiles George Holding, the U.S. Attorney in Raleigh, N.C., who’s managed to hang onto his job because he’s investigating prominent Democrats, making other prominent Democrats scared to touch him.
George Holding (gov)
Read The AP profile here.
The profile is nicely written but left me with a lot of unanswered questions. For example, what are the political pressures on Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)? As the state’s Democratic senator, Hagan gets to recommend the next U.S. Attorney. But she is obviously one of those Democrats scared to death of this mess, because she’s recommended that President Obama retain Holding, a protege of the late Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a far-right conservative.
Hagan wants Holding to finish his investigations of Gov. Mike Easley and former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. Read our previous report here.
The story quotes Helms’s former chief of staff, Jimmy Broughton, saying: ”One thing George is not is political.”
There wasn’t a thing about Helms that was not political. So to me, this statement really translates as: “We are going to tell people George is not political, so he can finish off these highly political investigations of Easley and Edwards.” But maybe I’m wrong. Readers, any thoughts?
