Eric Holder may have an *exquisitely* painful day today over at House Judiciary.

I know, I know: you are wounded unto death about such a thing occurring. Wounded unto death.

Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, where Republicans say they’ll grill him about the Justice Department’s secret review of Associated Press phone records and the IRS targeting of conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny, among other issues.

The oversight hearing had already been scheduled for 1 p.m. on May 15. But Republicans now plan to use the time to address the two issues that came to light this week.

The real question is, though: will it just be the Republicans piling on? Possibly not: the National Journal is kind of hinting* that maybe Democrats on Judiciary will be wanting to put some distance between them and the Obama administration’s exciting new game Wheel of Scandal. The AP thing would be the place for House Democrats to do it, too. Of the (current) Big Three scandals going on right now (Benghazi, IRS, AP): the narrative on Benghazi is locked down among Democrats. No way are any of them going to admit that the White House deliberately lied about the origins of that attack because they were in the middle of a Presidential election. The IRS issue is kind of problematical: the Democratic progressive base simply seems intellectually incapable of understanding why it looks horrifically bad when the IRS confesses that they targeted the administration’s political enemies. Best not to push that one too far… but the AP? Yeah, that’s reasonably safe. Particularly since the House passed a federal shield bill in 2009 that would have protected all those fine, upstanding journalists. So, yeah, they’re on the side of the angels on that one.

What’s that? “What happened to the (Republican-[co**]sponsored) Free Flow of Information Act of 2009?” Oh, Barack Obama killed it. He told Senate Democrats that this was a no-go, and this was back in 2009, when the President was scarier to Democratic politicians than he is now. So it died in the Senate, with a few whimpers. And guess who helped the President come to that decision? – Why, one of the people was, wait for it, wait for it: Attorney General Eric Holder!

…Oops?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*H/T Instapundit.

[**Edited for clarity.]