Holder: Comments About My Treatment Were About ‘Civility,’ Not Racism
Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out last week on his treatment by Congress, with the implication that it may have to do with his race. However, Holder cleared up to The Huffington Post that his comments were not about race, they were meant to reflect the current level of partisan “incivility” in Washington.
The media buzzed for days about whether Holder played the race card, but the attorney general explained HuffPost last Friday, “I didn’t say there was a racial component. I was very careful not to say that.”
When he was talking about his unfair treatment to Al Sharpton‘s National Action Network, he says, it was not about the color of his skin but about the level of incivility in Washington.
“I think what we have seen is kind of a breakdown in civility in Washington, D.C., and that becomes important because I think it has substantive impact… We can’t somehow separate whatever our personal feelings are and focus on our functions as members of the executive branch or as legislators. I think that I’ve done a pretty good job in doing that, but it’s frustrating at times.”
Holder also said he came up with the “asparagus” comeback to Louie Gohmert because it had “sort of stuck” in his mind for a while and he still doesn’t understand what Gohmert meant in the first place.
Watch his original remarks below:
[h/t TPM]
[photo via screengrab]
— —
