Congratulations to the editors at the Washington Post.  Seventeen months after the Eric Holder Justice Department dismissed a slam-dunk case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation, the Post gets around to printing a thorough vetting of the dismissal.  The story is slated for Saturday’s print edition.  While other media like Breitbart/The Bigs, Fox News, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Investors Business Daily, Pajamas Media, and Drudge have had dozens of stories on the corrupt New Black Panther dismissal, the Washington Post at last is in the game.

The story is a shocker too.  The shock comes from the middle of the road and factual nature of the story.

There are small problems with the story.  For one, the Washington Post is the only outlet that calls King Samir Shabazz by his old “slave name” (Shabazz’s own words) of Maruse Heath.  Even Heath doesn’t call himself Heath.  Of course this takes some of the sting off Shabazz’s rants against Jews and calls to kill “cracker babies in their crib.”

The Post’s decision to change a man’s name for him is controversial.  It has no place.

But overall, the story is very bad news for Eric Holder.  It debunks many of the myths spun by the administration.  Inside DOJ sources describe deep hostility to protecting whites at Justice.  DOJ sources say panther prosecutor Christian Adams never allowed his conservative views to influence his work, contradicting administration spin.  And perhaps most damning of all to Holder, sources defending the administration defend the idea that whites aren’t protected by the Civil Rights laws.  The latter is the blockbuster news in the Post piece. (more…)

As the mainstream media trips over itself to analyze and re-analyze the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Andrew Breitbart is under fire for ostensibly unethical behavior. Andrew is more than capable of defending himself, but I wanted to offer a few quick thoughts on this imbroglio:

(1) This President often decries the 24-hour, hyper-reactionary media cycle, yet his administration responded with warp-speed to toss Sherrod overboard. Can it now safely be asserted that the Obama administration “acted stupidly”?

(2) The administration’s thoughtless abandonment of Sherrod indicates a hair-trigger climate of paranoia about all issues racial within the West Wing. It seems J. Christian Adams’ whistle-blowing has taken its toll, and Team Obama is nervous about the degree of scrutiny its racially-tinged political machinations have received. On the heels of the New Black Panther kerfuffle, another major race flap just wouldn’t do–thus, a low-level African American female was deemed expendable, and was unceremoniously dumped. The White House now claims they didn’t press for Sherrod’s dismissal, yet is apologizing to her. Hmm.

(3) MSM critics are pouncing on Breitbart & Co. for “smearing” Sherrod by exploiting out-of-context remarks. As others have noted, many of these same critics were remarkably mute as the ACORN videos were revealed, yet eagerly jumped into the fray to prematurely crucify James O’Keefe when he was arrested in Louisiana. These duplicitous observers were also conspicuously subdued as Andrew Breitbart beat back the “N-word” accusations invented by the Congressional Black Caucus. The story selection speaks for itself. (more…)

The left is jumping up and down screaming “Gotcha!” over a post at American Prospect by Adam Serwer that purports to debunk the New Black Panther voter intimidation story.

Serwer’s headline:  “When Was the Black Panther Case Downgraded” is an important part of the obfuscation that runs through the reaction to his post as left-leaning media types desperately try to make his “find” mean something that it doesn’t.

First, let’s watch the highest-profile regurgitation of Serwer’s storyline, Keith Olbermann:

Seems pretty cut and dried, right?  The charge that Obama’s Justice Department dismissed the case against the Panthers is patently false because it was actually the Bush DOJ that dismissed them.

Well, at least that’s what Olbermann and his poor, tortured producers and staff want you to think.

Remember I pointed out that Serwer’s headline is the beginning of the obfuscation?  Read it again:  “When Was the Black Panther Case Downgraded.”

Get it? (more…)