Let’s see. Reaching conclusions based on a “glance”? Check. Relying on hearsay and rumor about a people instead of using independent thought? Check. Putting law-enforcement resources into attacking something based solely on appearances? Check. By golly, I think Andy McCarthy may be on to something here:

He hasn’t read the Arizona immigration law, even though reading the law is the basic duty of any lawyer (let alone the U.S. Attorney General) who is called on to assess a legal situation.

Thus, he hasn’t got reasonable suspicion that Arizonans are violating the Constitution, even though reasonable suspicion is the basic investigative standard we expect law-enforcement to satisfy before officials harass Americans with stepped up scrutiny. …

If a police officer, without taking elementary investigative steps to inform himself about the facts of a situation, and thus without reasonable suspicion, simply assumed a person must be guilty of wrongdoing based on the police officer’s avowed prejudice, what would Eric Holder call it?

Holder certainly wouldn’t call it responsible law-enforcement. The irony is, of course, that the Arizona law doesn’t allow for profiling, and its most recent amendment removes any remaining ambiguity about when police can investigate residency status, which is when they have probable cause to hold someone on another issue. Holder’s knee-jerk reaction says plenty about bigotry, but not about people in Arizona.

Allahpundit posted a link to the lengthy C-SPAN video in which Holder admitted that he had only “glanced” at the bill, but our friend Greg Hengler clips the answer as part of a “two faces of Eric Holder” montage from Townhall.  Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) on the panel makes the point that the Arizona bill is only ten pages long, or less than 1/200th the size of ObamaCare. How long would it have taken Holder to read it before shooting his mouth off about it?

Update: Noel Sheppard has more of the exchange with the committee.

Update II: Fausta also has more, and I updated the post above to identify Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX).