On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol pointed out that in Eric Holder's "nation of cowards" speech, the attorney general mentions 18 African Americans of distinction, but not a single military hero:
KRISTOL: Here's the big deal, though. Sean Delonas is a cartoonist for the New York Post. Phil Gramm, who was widely denounced -- John McCain had to remove him from the campaign for calling the nation a nation of whiners -- was in the private sector, an informal adviser to John McCain. Eric Holder is the attorney general of the United States. This was a speech given in his official capacity at the Justice Department. It is a total disgrace -- a total disgrace -- for the attorney general of the United States to stand up there and say in his formal prepared remarks that this is a nation of cowards. What could he be thinking? I mean, he really should be forced to apologize. He, in fact, has gotten a total walk. Phil Gramm was denounced. John McCain had to say, "Oh, my God, my informal adviser said we were whining too much." A nation of cowards? People really should read the speech, incidentally, to see what real liberal elitism is. It's a disgrace on many levels. He cites 18 African Americans in the next to the last paragraph of the speech as examples, and many of them are very impressive men and women -- not a single military person. Now, one of the great things that African Americans have done in U.S. history, despite being discriminated against throughout, until very nearly the last couple of decades, is serve this country with great distinction in war. Not a single African American military hero is cited by Eric Holder
Here's the list of the African Americans Holder acknowledged in his speech:
Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Walter White, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Charles Drew, Paul Robeson, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Vivian Malone, Rosa Parks, Marion Anderson, Emmit Till.