Eric Holder comments on his avian nickname
In an interview on Sunday, Attorney General Eric Holder learned he has a nickname.
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry told Holder that his nickname among the show’s viewers “in nerdland” is “the Duck,” report the Hill and the Washington Post.
Holder appeared to suppress a smile. “The Duck?” he responded.
Harris-Perry explained. “We say you have a very sort of placid and even way of presenting, but you are just working for justice underneath,” she said, with a motion mimicking the paddling of a duck’s feet.
“Would you quack for us?” Harris-Perry asked.
Holder declined, but he said the nickname was apt. “I was born and raised in New York City, in the ’50s and ’60s. And for an African-American guy, the thing was to be cool, you know? You gotta be cool,” he said.
“And so on the surface I like to think that’s the way I appear to be. But you’re absolutely right; those little duck feet are just moving as fast as they can underneath, and things are going as fast as they can behind the scenes.”
Holder has faced criticism and tough questioning in Congress, particularly about his handling of the botched gun-running investigation dubbed Operation Fast and Furious, the Hill notes. Holder referred to his demeanor during congressional questioning as the interview continued.
“I may have been cool in congressional hearings on the outside, but I was pissed off a lot of the time, too,” Holder said. “It was a question of trying to rein in those feelings and make sure that on the outside I was cool.”
