THE PANTHER CASE – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  Remember the outrageous dismissal, by Eric Holder's Injustice Department, of the slam-dunk case against the Philadelphia Black Panthers for obstructing the right to vote on election day, 2008?  The Panthers stood outside polling places and intimidated people. 

When Obama came in, the case was suddenly dropped.  Many, including many non-conservatives, were appalled.  The evidence, on videotape, was clear-cut.

But it's a case that won't die.  From The Washington Times:

A member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told The Washington Times Friday afternoon that he believes “a racist application of the voting rights laws might have been at play” in a controversial decision by the Department of Justice exactly one year ago to dismiss most charges in a voter intimidation case against affiliates of the New Black Panther Party.

The comments came in an interview several hours after a commission hearing featuring numerous testy exchanges between several commissioners and Thomas E. Perez, head of DoJ's civil rights division. Commissioners repeatedly expressed disapproval of what they obviously considered to be evasive, irrelevant or filibuster-like answers from Mr. Perez to their questions about the timing, substance, and procedures of DoJ with regard to the case. Commissioner Gail Heriot particularly showed distress at the decision to entirely drop the case against one of the two Black Panthers on site at the Philadelphia polls on Election Day of 2008, and on the injunction against the other defendant that was so limited it was “almost comical.”

But the biggest and most frequent sparks flew between Mr. Perez and commissioner Todd Gaziano when Mr. Gaziano cited several press reports to the effect that the decision to drop the case grew out of a conscious new attitude at the civil rights division to avoid enforcement of civil rights laws if the offenders, rather than the victims, are minorities. Mr. Perez denied a racial double-standard.

COMMENT:  Of course there was, and is, a racial double standard, just as there is in the universities that produced the staff of the Civil Rights Division.  When the attorney general of the United States cannot bring himself to utter the words "Islamic extremism," you know there's a double and triple standard at work.

We hope this case is kept alive until those individuals in DOJ responsible for dropping it are named and, if not disciplined, at least shamed.  And we will demand to know who gave the order.

May 14, 2010