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Frank James, NPR

Holder plays asparagus card against GOP antagonist

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Attorney General Eric Holder played the asparagus card against one of his House Republican tormenters.
Attorney General Eric Holder played the asparagus card against one of his House Republican tormenters.
Manuel Balce Ceneta

Revenge and asparagus are apparently dishes best served cold — at least when served by Attorney General Eric Holder.

After a testy exchange Tuesday with Rep. Louis Gohmert, a Texas Republican who had clearly gotten on his last nerve, Holder delivered a dose of ridicule.

"Good luck with your asparagus," Holder said dismissively, in one of the most memorable moments of snark to occur in, oh, at least the last few hours between an Obama administration official and a Republican House member.

To really appreciate the moment, you had to know that Holder — who's among the administration officials most detested by conservatives — was mocking a Gohmert malapropism from last year that was committed during another bilious hearing involving the attorney general.

After Holder vigorously defended himself and his agency at that earlier hearing from Gohmert's accusation that the Justice Department failed to prevent the Boston Marathon bombing, a flustered Gohmert said: "The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus."

Your guess is as good as ours at what the congressman was going for there.

Fast forward almost a year: The Texas congressman on Tuesday accused the attorney general of not taking seriously the 2012 vote by the Republican-controlled House to find him in contempt over the Fast and Furious scandal.

Holder wasn't about to let that statement go by without response."You don't want to go there, buddy" he told Gohmert. But the congressman did want to go there.

So as the congressman's time to ask questions of the attorney general expired, Holder poked Gohmert in the eye with an asparagus spear, so to speak. Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.