Senate votes to confirm Holder as AG

Eric Holder won Senate confirmation Monday as the nation's first black attorney general. The vote was 75-21, with all the opposition coming from Republicans. Holder's chief supporter, Sen. Patrick Leahy, said the confirmation was a fulfillment of civil rights leader Martin Luther King's dream that everyone would be judged by the content of their character.

Leahy said the confirmation would take the nation up the path that King wanted, where people are judged by the content of their character.

A small group of Republicans said they opposed Holder. They argued he was hostile to gun control and not fully supportive of the war on terrorism.