Libertarian Think Tank Removes Piece Comparing Eric Holder To George Wallace

Attorney General Eric Holder listens on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2104, while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the Justice Department. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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The Cato Institute on Thursday published and quickly removed a piece comparing Attorney General Eric Holder to segregationist George Wallace.

In the column, senior fellow Ilya Shapiro said that Holder had the “most divisive tenure of any attorney general I can recall, tearing the country apart on racial and partisan lines,” according to a cached version of the piece.

After arguing that Holder was the worst attorney general ever, Shapiro jumped into the George Wallace comparison.

“Like a modern-day George Wallace, Holder has called for racial preference now, racial preferences tomorrow, racial preferences forever,” he wrote.

As ThinkProgress noted, this was likely a reference to Wallace’s inaugural address as governor of Alabama in which he used the phrase “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Shapiro said that Holder only worked to protect minority groups.

“According to our outgoing attorney general, and the 14th Amendment, Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act only protect some citizens (members of the right kinds of racial minority groups) – and should be used to extract political and financial concessions for them,” he wrote.

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