Is there any defense for why Holder should stay?

Of course!  He is a successful race grievance huckster and member of the preferred race.  And non-referred races are cowardly.

I'm a Californian and I'm always thinking I need to apologize to the rest of country for some piece of stupidity or another my state has managed to inflict on the rest of the country.  Carly Fiorina lost to this woman, Senator Ma'am!

Lostingotham - You are of course absolutely correct about the "special channels".  I immediately thought of that when the offer came to me.  But I took advantage of it when offered.  The regular channel just would not work, I would still be out there dangling.

Did you send the letter in?  I actually write my federal reps almost regularly.  The last one was about 10 days ago on "comprehensive" immigration reform.  I was thinking of waiting for the response, then putting it up along with my letter in member feed section.  So far, no bad things happening to me, but now in light of current events . . . 

I became totally irate with the California DMV, who took the money, but would not issue the registration on a vintage motorcycle.  Incomprehensible notices, refusal to take extra money for mysterious $14 fee, told to get "authorization" from website and mail in the $14, but the website errored.  While on hold with the DMV for 45 minutes, I drafted a very obnoxious letter to my state reps.  I then emailed it, and 90 minutes later, I get a phone call from the Senator's office.  I'm thinking its just to make sure I'm home for my visit from the Gestapo.  But, the Office offered to expedite my solution through their special "legislative" channels.  And they did so, getting my registration for me within a week, rather than the 60 days the DMV was promising.

"I know chimpy McHitlerBurton (Bush) will declare marshal law and stay in office.  I am 100% sure".  This came from my boss!

Not knowing the difference between carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

My favorite is:

"Pakistanis are people, just like everyone else."

I See Rude People by Amy Alkon is a great book to read for tips on how to deal with these situations.  It presents many variations of PJ's story.  I have inserted myself into more than a few phone conversations after reading it.

We need a Senate Select Committee, as was done with Watergate.  Hire real lawyers to question.  Subpoena witnesses.  Put them under oath.  The Democrats may spend there time asking Hillary if her butt still hurts (or whatever she hurt in her fall), and thanking her for all she's done for women's status, etc., but that will not serve them so well if serious people will follow where the documents and testimony leads.

1 )  Obama was the empty chair.  He found it boring, had to rest up for the next day's fundraiser in Las Vegas,  He is aware that he truly does not know anything about anything, so what could he ad to the situation? Better to rest up so he could talk pretty the next day.

Official progressive positions - no!  But everyone is conservative about what they know best.  So I can agree with my leftist professor friend that the humanities at his university are a "wasteland of political correctness", that our municipal civil servants are predatory goof offs, that the homeless and Occupy Whatever are mostly criminals, that the DMV is to be avoided at all costs.  Interestingly, he is much more likely to engage in cultural stereotypes that I am, but he has to teach them . . .  But still, he's progressive in all policy positions.

Guns - that's it.  That's that only place he will stray from the liberal dogma.

I went to UC and live in California.  I'm fairly certain that the citizenry of this state does not agree with this expensive fetish with diversity, and I would even bet that not even the student body of UC does.  Yet, here it is.  We might as well be Europe!   At least I have fun when UC calls me up for donations.

I finally read The Road to Serfdom a few years ago, and it left me in awe, and I have thought about it almost everyday since.  It was published just before the end of WWII, and he was concerned that planned economies, which were how the major combatants were running themselves during the war, would be the model of the future.  In the beginning of the book he states that the present Englishman ( I thought: rationed food, lucky to have a bicycle) enjoyed wealth and security that was unimaginable to the Englishman of the not-so-distant past, and that the first duty of the politician/intellectual was to not destroy whatever had enabled that transformation.  The very essence of conservatism!  He also explained how the immoral rise to the top in a planned economy, and many other corollaries.  At publication time, the world had only a few decades of experience with planned economies, yet he understood them so well!  He also understood what it would take for a democracy to remain a free market economy - a safety net, and rule of law.  He came across to me as a profound, prescient, and brilliant thinker, and anything but hard-hearted.

Ultimately, you're probably right about the political power.  But on the way, especially in educational institutions wherein it is most entrenched, it serves to stop inquiry, debate, reflection, and even discussion.  It also serves those-who-would-be offended with the opportunity to get righteous when the code is violated, and I suppose that is a good feeling.

I recall reading in Jacques Barzun's From Dawn To Decadence that World War I threw artists into some kind of crisis from which they have still not recovered.  It seems that when the hostilities broke out, the artists were the among the most war-mongering of groups.  After the war, they were thrown into crisis by their obvious mistake, (and the death of so many artists), and art became ridiculous or post modern, or without any standards.   David Sidaris said you could hang a turd on a wall and call it art.  "Hey, that's my line", I thought.

Its Rawhide followed by Mad Men

Even if they are not teaching that America is the root of all evil, or even most of the world's problems, they are certainly teaching multiculturalism, which at a minimum discourages assimilation.  Why assimilate if everything is of equal value.  It is hard to teach US History and instill any degree of pride in our heritage when the founding fathers, Lincoln, FDR, etc. are all from the same culture.  All the baggage of the immigrant's culture, which in total has made the mother society worthy of leaving, is encouraged.  Just don't kill the Jews in our presence.  The only exception I know of is when the Egyptian Copt make the "reprehensible video slandering the prophet Mohammed".  Otherwise, dysfunctional  cultural attributes seem to be encouraged.

It is the era surrounding the Constitutional Convention.  All eras have flaws, especially by today's sensibilities.  But that era brought forth men of such wisdom and comity, who struggled so long and with such good faith to achieve something so unlikely, while leaving such a wonderful record of their debates.  It is so hard to imagine that happening in any subsequent era, or any other place.  I am in awe of these people, and often suspect the agency of some higher power must have been involved.  It is almost a miracle.