Short version: Eric Holder got to be testifying before the Senate on a day where the big news was that the NSA was having Verizon pull its phone logs and hand them over to the federal government. Mark Kirk had an opportunity to ask questions.

Hi-jinks, as they say, ensued.

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For those of you who don’t have video, here’s a rough translation/summary of what Holder and Kirk said:

Kirk: Please tell me that the Executive branch of the government wasn’t so transcendentally stupid as to monitor calls made by the Legislative branch of the government. You understand that this is a big Biden deal, right?

Holder: I will now indicate how much I hate you personally by saying With all due respect, Senator. Hopefully, this insult will distract you from noticing that I am not answering “No,” which almost certainly means that the fumble-fingered Model UN rejects that we inexplicably keep hiring as staffers have, in fact, been monitoring your phone calls –

Kirk (interrupting): I would interrupt you and say that the correct answer would be to say that “No, we stayed within our lane and I’m assuring you that we did not spy on Members of Congress.”

Oh, wait. That last sentence from Mark Kirk isn’t a translation. It’s a literal quote. Please note that Mark Kirk is a Republican from Illinois; if there’s a Senator out there who has a vested interest in not picking an unnecessary fight with the Obama machine, it’s Kirk. And yet, here the Senator is, ripping chunks off of the Attorney General. I hope, for Barack Obama’s sake, that he’s satisfied with the way that Eric Holder is doing his duty as a meat shield; because Obama’s never again going to be able to use Holder to get things done…

Moe Lane (crosspost)