Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield."

Cause for cautious optimism, clearly. But will Obama's Justice Department show newspapers some love? The kicker:

Mr. Holder said the department should be open to preserving a healthy newspaper industry. He said he would consider adjusting enforcement of antitrust statutes if that would help news organizations develop collective distribution systems.

Hmm. Why don't they just nationalize us already?

In 1996, Holder proposed cracking down on marijuana users and sellers, a policy perspective which was and---assuming he still holds it---is completely antithetical to President-Elect Barack Obama's promise to end federal crackdowns on medical marijuana dispensaries.

What kind of legacy did Holder leave? Evidence abounds that the drug war has done nothing to help D.C.'s crime problem. The MPD are still investigating recent violence in Petworth, but it's likely that the crimes have a drug component, just as they do in Trinidad, Anacostia, on Kennedy Street, and in other parts of the District. Turf wars have become part and parcel of the drug trade, and are a direct result of law enforcement artificially driving up prices for drugs and limiting geographic opportunities for transactions.

The Washington Post on Holder's (failed) drug policies in 1996:

U.S. Attorney Eric H. Holder Jr. said in an interview that he is considering not only prosecuting more marijuana cases but also asking the D.C. Council to enact stiffer penalties for the sale and use of marijuana.

"We have too long taken the view that what we would term to be minor crimes are not important," Holder said, referring to current attitudes toward marijuana use and other offenses such as panhandling.

Now, people arrested in the District and charged with distributing marijuana, even large quantities, face only misdemeanor charges, a standard that has sparked repeated complaints by police officers....

Holder said he hopes to discourage some of that activity by being tougher on marijuana crimes. New guidelines should be in place by the end of the month, he said, noting that the District could learn from New York's "zero-tolerance" policy. There, crime plummeted when police aggressively enforced quality-of-life crimes, including panhandling and public drinking, which gave officers an opportunity to check for drugs, guns and outstanding warrants.

"If you take these so-called minor crimes seriously and treat them fully, it has a ripple effect," Holder said. [h/t to Dave Weigel]

BTW: New York's "zero-tolerance" policy wasn't a reform in any meaningful sense of the word. Instead, it gave the state license to lock away undesirables, of which---by N.Y.'s criteria---D.C. has more than a few.

Anyone care to bet against Holder finding a way to invest more money in the War on Drugs while still fulfilling Obama's promise to end raids on medical marijuana dispensaries? My money says the latter will give them enough political capital to fuck over recreational users across the country.

In a cover story in 1997—the same year Clinton nominated Holder for Dep. Attorney General—City Paper questioned Holder's approach to corruption during his tenure as U.S. Attorney for D.C.

But for all the love Holder has engendered in the community as U.S. Attorney, he has had precious little impact on the city's endemic municipal corruption.

Holder defended himself to reporter Stephanie Mencimer as follows:

"Certainly, the Dirty Dozen occurred while I was here," he says, referring to the 12 police officers caught up in an FBI sting operation in 1993 for bribery and other drug charges. "There was the housing case involving the sale of Section 8 authorizations, and there are other things in my mind that I think about our public corruption section and the work that they've done on the local side. So I'm not sure there's anything we have to apologize for, or try to defend. We've been as vigilant as we've ever been."

Further complications to this appointment include Holder's instrumental role in Clinton's presidential pardon of "billionaire fugitive" Mark Rich, and a June interview with Legal Times in which he said an ascent to A.G. "ain't gonna happen."

Just for good measure, a bit of CP prescience, courtesy of Mencimer:

Even without any big corruption trials, in the final analysis, Holder will get what all the District's U.S. Attorneys get for their trouble here: a better job. Holder's three and a half years in the District have given him wings. He's likely to be flying on to the Justice Department soon, where the albatross around his neck will be replaced by one who looks quite a bit like Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, the District will be left with the same old cadre of crooks, a durable group who know that if they bide their time they can outlast just about any U.S. Attorney.

Photograph courtesy of Covington & Burling LLP