Huckabee: Holder contempt 'not about his color'

Look, after the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to honor a subpoena for documents related to the taxpayer funded gun-running operation that resulted in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol officer, Holder and some members of Congress insinuated that the vote was based on Holder being the first African-American to serve as attorney general. Now this was not a strict partisan vote, 17 Democrats joined in the vote for the contempt charge. Saying that it was about race and not about the fact that your tax dollars bought guns that ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and ultimately were used to murder 300 Mexicans and an American law enforcement officer is an insult not just to Brian Terry, the murdered officer, but an insult to African-Americans everywhere.

Look I grew up in a Jim Crow dominated South, I know what racism looks like. I also fought against it my entire adult life. Having appointed more people of color to key positions in the government than any other governor in my state's history, and having received over 48 percent of the African-American vote, unheard of for a Republican, I take a back seat to no one in fighting the evils of bigotry. But it's not just disappointing, it's disgusting to hear the attorney general and members of Congress hide behind charges of racism instead of answering legitimate questions as to why Brian Terry is dead, and who is responsible for it. It insults the true achievements of African-Americans who've accomplished great things not because they were artificially propped up or protected by race preferences, but because they were genuinely the best at what they did.

Now there is still some racism in this country, I know that, but that's not the reason Eric Holder is in trouble and it's condescending and contemptuous of every taxpayer to think that wanting answers to a botched government operation and the resulting lies and cover-ups is about race. Because if we can't question the competence of elected or appointed government officials who are suppose to be accountable to the taxpayers if in fact they are people of color, then they shouldn't take the jobs. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream, his dream was that people would be neither judged or excused by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Claiming racism because a bipartisan vote in Congress asks for answers from the highest law enforcement officer in the nation is absurd. Equality means people are treated without regard to their color, not treated better or worse because it. When white kids don't get prosecuted to the extent that black kids do for an identical drug crime, that's racism. But when we ask an attorney general to follow the law, it's not about his color, it's about his compliance with the law.