Eric Holder's Attorney General Senate confirmation hearing began this morning and the more I read, the more clear it becomes just what a clean break from the Gonzales style DOJ we're in for under Holder.

For example, the most recent post on The NYTimes' liveblog of the hearing features this beauty:

Never one to be less than sarcastic or hard-hitting, Senator Chuck Schumer just conducted a Q&A series with Mr. Holder, checking to see if he would ever be as beholden to Mr. Obama as say, one of this senator's most-criticized former attorneys general, Alberto Gonzales.

Mr. Schumer and Mr. Holder called the civil rights division of the Justice Department a "jewel" of the agency, with Mr. Holder promising to investigate fully what has happened to it in recent years.

Specifically, per TPM, Holder said he would revisit the decision not to charge Bush DOJ hack and criminal Bradley Schlozman.

Holder just told the Senate Judiciary committee that he wants to reconsider the Bush Justice Department's curious decision not to bring criminal charges against Schlozman, a former top department official who was found by a DOJ investigation to have politicized hiring decisions, then lied about it to Congress in an effort to cover it up.

Asked about the issue moments ago by Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- one of the lawmakers to whom Schlozman was found to have given an untruthful answer during testimony -- Holder declared: "I want to know why the determination was made not to pursue charges."

Also during his hearing, Holder exhibited zero nuance on whether waterboarding is torture.

Eric Holder, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to be attorney general, said he believed the controversial interrogation tactic of waterboarding, used by the CIA against three terrorism suspects, is a form of torture.

"I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that waterboarding is torture," Holder said at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday in response to questioning by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont. [...]

Holder's declaration on waterboarding signals that Obama's Justice Department would not tolerate it.

Not that it's difficult to be a better AG than Alberto Gonzales and not that there's any political peril in assertively claiming the anti-Gonzo and anti-Bush mantle, but it sure is nice to hear directly from Holder's lips.

The hearing will reconvene at 2:15pm EST.