On the day that Eric Holder announced that he would be stepping down from his position as Attorney General, I ran across a senior White House official from a Republican administration. Charitably attributing some minimal level of competence to the Obama administration, he assumed that the White House had already selected Holder’s successor and asked me who I thought had been selected. When I told him that I’d bet that the White House hadn’t made a decision, he was very surprised that it might be so incompetent.

Two weeks later, Politico reports that the White House is “vexed” on how to replace Holder and “is seriously considering waiting until after Election Day to announce a replacement … in order to avoid creating a new political problem for vulnerable Senate Democrats.”