So says Newsweek and MSNBC. But AP says the votes are still being counted for confirmation.
So who is Holder? Read this excellent profile by American Lawyer. An excerpt:
[I]n seven years at the firm Holder has become a sought-after attorney, with high-profile assignments from the National Football League, Merck & Co., Inc., and Chiquita last year alone. Life is good for private citizen Eric Holder, Jr. After more than two decades in public service jobs, including stints as deputy U.S. attorney general and U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Holder now has time and money he never had before. Answering to his clients and partners is a lot less stressful than getting calls about an investigation into the president’s improper relationship with an intern or being hauled before a congressional committee to explain his role in the pardoning of a billionaire fugitive. At Covington, Holder enjoys the status of someone who has been there, done that. He can join a board (he briefly served on MCI’s board) or make a bid with an investor group for a Major League Baseball team (his group lost the contest for the Washington Nationals). But as good as it’s been for Holder at Covington, a successful private practice is not the endgame. Holder has an acute (some might say suicidal) sense of his duty to serve. As an avid student of modern American history, he is well aware that he has been a groundbreaker: the first black U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and later the first black deputy attorney general. He’s rumored to have been on the short list of candidates for attorney general of both Al Gore and John Kerry.
