Weigel, Rest of the Left Change the Facts on the New Black Panther Case

Dave Weigel, fresh from his firing over at the Washington Post, is guestblogging over at Andrew Sullivan's and pushing the latest Lefty meme on the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. Damn, they got JournoList 2.0 up fast.

Anyway, the claim -- first published at Adam Serwer's blog as a great big "Ah HAH!" -- is that the New Black Panther case was "downgraded" from a criminal to a civil case back during the Bush Administration.

[T]he case was downgraded to a civil case 11 days before Obama was inaugurated, 26 days before Eric Holder became attorney general, and about nine months before Thomas Perez was confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division.

Conservative activist and former Voting Section Attorney J. Christian Adams identified United States Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli as the person who ordered the case dismissed, but he wasn't confirmed until March, three months after the case was downgraded.

To the Left and Dave Weigel (BIRM), this somehow means that Obama flunkies couldn't have been responsible for circular-filing the case in May 2009. Well, the obvious flaw with this line of reasoning is that it was the dismissal of the civil case that caused an uproar and started the US Commission on Civil Rights sniffing around.

The Left wants to change the story to something about a criminal case against the hate-stick wielding racialists playing thug for a day at a polling place. Well, that'd be nice (who doesn't love folks who brandish hate-sticks?), but that's not what the story was about.

The Washington Times broke this on May 29, 2009 (note for idiot Leftists: that's after Obama was inaugurated and after Perrelli joined Justice):

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

It was always about the civil complaint, right from the beginning. Adam Serwer is, well, an artard who wants to change the story. And Weigel uncritically repeats this Lefty meme as if it proves something.

Nobody I know is that stupid. The USCCR and Republicans in general got interested over the dismissal of a civil complaint in May 2009. The details of that dismissal are still in doubt given Obama Administration refusal to comply with USCCR subpoenas. This will be resolved, I expect, but not until the GOP regains the House and the subpoena power that comes with the majority...

Thanks to DrewM for a pointer.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:31 PM

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