Focus on the Family, George Soros’s Open Society Policy Center, the American Conservative Union and the American Civil Liberties Union are all furious with Attorney General Eric Holder — and amazingly enough, it’s about the same thing.

The incitement for such an unusual alliance is the Justice Department’s failure to act in the face of a challenge to fundamental human dignity: The ongoing, almost commonplace rape of prisoners at the hands of other prisoners or prison guards.

Estimates based on a 2007 DOJ survey of inmates suggest that more than 60,000 prisoners — or about 1 in 20 — are sexually assaulted each year.

A law passed in 2003 created an independent commission to develop national standards to address the problem. The commission issued its exhaustive report in June 2009. And the attorney general was required by law to enact new standards by June 23, 2010.

That was nearly two months ago.

In a June letter June, Holder expressed his ‘regret’ that he would not be able to meet Congress’s deadline. He explained that the working group he commissioned — which represents 13 different Justice Department offices and the Department of Homeland Security — is moving as fast as it can.

So on Tuesday, the unusual […]