CHUCK TODD: He did a lot of tough stuff that you would say hey, Attorney General has to do tough stuff, this is not a forgiving job, you have to do tough stuff, but what's interesting about him, he is a very non-political person. And I think that people used to mistakenly think that this guy was this long time political operative that happened to be an Attorney General. That's not him at all. In fact, that used to get him in some hot water with the president's own political aides who sometimes felt that Eric Holder wasn't thinking about politics of an issue, whether it was, for instance, early on.



He had some well known clashes with the first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel and with David Axelrod over the issue of detainees, right, and whether you try them in the justice system or you try them in the military tribunals. Those type of fights -- shutting down Guantanamo; do you give Miranda rights to these guys? Those type of issues where he would get heat inside the White House because they felt he wasn't political enough, and yet to the outside world he'd get criticized from Republicans on Capitol Hill, oh because htey thought he was being too much, too political. The guy wasn't political at all and in many ways he just ended up being the point person to attract a lot of attacks.