VivirLatino

I don’t really watch cable news much–I get most of my news from the internet–so I wasn’t really aware that there is a brewing story going on around the Obama administration’s handling of the New Black Panther case. Basically, what seems to have happened was that a leader of the New Black Panther Party, King Samir Shabazz, showed up at an election site in Pennsylvania and proceeded to intimidate and frighten voters. Later on, he was caught on video advocating the murder of white children.

The problem came when, having successfully pressed charges against Shabazz (i.e. Shabazz was found guilty) the Obama administration declined to press further charges against him. Because, you know, he was already convicted and sitting in jail.

So of course the right media decides that this is an excellent opportunity to assume that the Obama admin didn’t pursue charges because of “racial” reasons.

From Media matters we get the news that CNN correspondent Erick Erickson thinks this situation should be the new “Willie Horton”:

Had Horton been white, the Republicans still would have used the ad. But Horton was black and the ad was powerfully effective — so effective that it and Dukakis’s stupid answer about opposing the death penalty even if his wife were murdered destroyed the Democrats in 1988 — the Democrats screamed racism at the top of their lungs and their accomplices in the media have forever agreed. Willie Horton = racism.

Nonsense. The ad worked. It was powerful. It was the truth. That’s why the Democrats screamed racism so loud. It was the only way to stop the GOP from going this direction again. They know the GOP lives in perpetual quixotic quest for the day it gets a significant share of the black vote.

Now we have King Samir Shabazz. He showed up at a polling location in Pennsylvania and intimidated voters going into the polls. The Justice Department pursued the case and, having received a verdict it the government’s favor, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder stopped pursuing the New Black Panthers.

Video has subsequently come out of King Samir Shabazz encouraging the murder of white children.

Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls.

The Democrats will scream racism. Let them. Republicans are not going to pick up significant black support anyway. But here’s the thing: everyone but the Democrats will understand this is not racism. This isn’t even about race. This is about the judgment of an administration that would rather prosecute Arizona for doing what the feds won’t do than prosecuting violent thugs who would deny you and me the right to vote while killing our kids.

Never mind the fact that the administration DID pursue a successful prosecution against Shabazz or that it was the *Bush* administration that chose not to press charges. And the especially interesting thing is that the Bush administration refused to press similar charges against the Minute Men in Arizona:

DOJ did not pursue allegations that Minutemen intimidated Hispanic voters with a gun in 2006. Perez testified that in 2006, the Justice Department “declined to bring any action for alleged voter intimidation” “when three well-known anti-immigrant advocates affiliated with the Minutemen, one of whom was carrying a gun, allegedly intimidated Latino voters at a polling place by approaching several persons, filming them, and advocating and printing voting materials in Spanish.” [U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 5/14/10]

Anti-immigrant activist in 2006 case reportedly had “9mm Glock strapped to his side” at polling place. A November 8, 2006, Austin American-Statesman article reported (from the Nexis database): “In Arizona, Roy Warden, an anti-immigration activist with the Minutemen, and a handful of supporters staked out a Tucson precinct and questioned Hispanic voters at the polls to determine whether they spoke English.” The article continued:

Armed with a 9mm Glock automatic strapped to his side, Warden said he planned to photograph Hispanic voters entering polls in an effort to identify illegal immigrants and felons.

I believe what this all boils down to is a black man with a stick is frightening. Not pursuing charges against black men with sticks is showing racial bias. A white man with a gun, on the other hand, is doing the government a *favor*, see. Helping to monitor and control the situation. Why on earth would one pursue charges against this white man?

I understand it–why don’t you?