Last night the Department of Justice released a statement about the uproar caused by Eric Holder using the race card.
“That is a complete distortion of the attorney general’s comment. His comments both in the article and elsewhere made clear that he believes much of the criticism is launched against him are unfortunately the typical Washington gotcha game. A simple reading of those comments show he was referring to how he is identified with the president given their close relationship and all they share in common including their ideology. The position of the attorney general has been a target for partisan attacks, and given the critical work that this attorney general he is doing at the Department of Justice, it’s no surprise that some are engaging in such tactics. His critics rightly view the attorney general is a progressive force, and given our current political environment, there will those who use any opportunity to score political points.”
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Here’s what we supposedly confused (bold my emphasis):
Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.“
So exactly what did we distort? There’s a key word in Mr. Savage’s sentence: animus. This is Merriam-Webster’s definition:
1: basic attitude or governing spirit : disposition, intention2: a usually prejudiced and often spiteful or malevolent ill will3: an inner masculine part of the female personality in the analytic psychology of C. G. Jung — compare anima
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