At least as the media likes to frame it, Barack Obama wants to build a “Team of Rivals” with conflicting views who won’t be shy about telling him when they think he’s off base — a step away from the cronyism and uniformity that the Bush administration has been associated with. But details continue to emerge that Eric Holder was more intimately involved in the Marc Rich pardon than Democrats would like to have us believe, as even the New York Times acknowledges.

And in today’s Washington Post, Richard Cohen puts it this way: “the pardon cannot be excepted. It suggests that Holder, whatever his other qualifications, could not say no to power. The Rich pardon request had power written all over it — the patronage of important Democratic fundraisers, for instance.”

Whatever Holder’s qualifications, the idea that he will stand up to Obama and tell him when he’s wrong, is undermined by the Rich episode.