re: Somebody argue with this Pat Buchanan article, please.

A 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the Washington Post -- highlighted in a Wednesday USA Today op-ed -- found that police files and court records from a period coinciding with Holder's tenure as Washington's U.S. attorney revealed "a pattern of reckless and indiscriminate gunplay by officers sent into the streets with inadequate training and little oversight."

"Washington's officers fire their weapons at more than double the rate of police in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or Miami," the Post reported. In the five-year period before the investigation was published, D.C. police had fired at 54 moving cars, shot nine unarmed men on foot, and in 11 cases ruled shootings justified "despite eyewitness accounts or forensic evidence that contradicted officers."

Holder told the Post he hadn't seen a pattern of excessive force. For all the malfeasance the Post found, Holder's tenure as top prosecutor from 1993 to 1997 saw charges against only two officers -- for lying about their roles in a fatal shooting.