Voter Intimidation, New Black Panthers and the DOJ!

His "testimony" looks like a lot of "he said she said". It might make good election propaganda, but I don't foresee any head rolling coming from this.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politic...hell-for-Obama

Well, it looks as though instead of being a bombshell, the testimony may very well have shot the entire thing in the foot. His complaint that he was directed to stop asking prospective employees if they would "prosecute blacks as well as whites" makes it far, far to easy to discredit him. He could have asked if they would prosecute "regardless of race" and all would have been fine. His ethnic specific questioning of applicants, especially after election of a black president, can too easily be discounted as motivated by racism or agenda driven.

The fact that the bloggers that were yelling "bombshell" have been completely, totally quiet since the testimony tells me that it was just as obvious to them that the bombshell had landed in the wrong place.

How about we read exactly what the man said to the Civil Rights Comm and make up our own minds about how important his testimony was.

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2010/0...ny_9-24-10.pdf

I did That's exactly why I said he's either a bit racist or has an agenda. It's on page 7.

I guess I just didn't see it that way. With all the guff he got from that one case, I think he had reason to want to make sure the new applicants could be color blind and be able to see whites as victims in these cases as well. From his testimony it sounds like quite a few in that place don't see that it is possible for a black to victimize whites in a voting case.

Of course if you don't believe a word he is saying then nothing for it.

If that were the case, all he had to ask is if they would be willing to prosecute cases regardless of race. His choice of wording, which reflects "whites vs. everyone else" can easily be made to appear racist, and therefore, biased. And if there is bias, how much of his testimony can be believed?

So because you see a slight bias in his wording of one thing in his testimony he is lying. And so is Adams. And so did Bartle Bull. All liars.

Well of course. I'm simply following the standards set on this forum. There is no such thing as a slip of the tongue or unfortunate wording in politics. Everything is a Freudian slip that reveals their true feelings. Bush still thinks we're fighting a crusade and Obama still thinks he's been to 57 states...just check the older threads, it's all there.

Besides, in all honesty, they don't have to be lying, just as long as the slightest doubt can be cast on what they say. And this fellow walked (or talked) right into it.

Having now read through the testimony, I don't see that as a bias. Asking a prospective officer of the US Justice Department whether they can apply the law in a color-blind fashion doesn't strike me as bias, but rather a very crucial question.

And while some may see it otherwise, I believe the wording of his question to prospective prosecutors is actually very important. Everyone, if asked if they can apply law in a color-blind fashion will, of course, say, "Yes." But ask it more specifically, that is, can you apply the law when the intimidation is against what we would normally consider the majority, but may be the minority in some areas, may well elicit a very different question.

Pollsters know this fact. Ask people currently if they would vote for a generic Democrat against a generic Republican, and the Republican likely wins in a landslide. Give specific names that people know and suddenly the question is no longer theoretical, but real, and the results are likely to be much different.

So, ask idealistic young lawyers looking to change the world, "Can you apply the American law to all, in spite of their race?" and you likely will get an answer in the affirmative. Ask, "Can you apply the law on voter intimidation to protect white voters against black intimidation?" and you are likely to get a very different answer, as Coates clearly did and which is what his political superiors were objecting to, since clearly their answer to the same question would have been, "No."

If I were in the position of the current DOJ appointed leaders, I would be very concerned that a future administration might view such blatant statements of prejudice in applying the law as reason for prosecution (or, perhaps, persecution). And giving a false answer to an investigating official, be it Congress, FBI, or whatever, can, as Scooter Libby can explain, be disastrous.

That all could very well be true. It could also very well be true that his interview question of how the prospective employee would perform based on involvement of a specific race is in violation of the Employment section of the very Civil Rights Act he claims to be trying to enforce. Having him stop asking race specific questions isn't a sneaky reverse-discrimination issue, it's a simple legal issue under the Civil Rights Act.

If he had asked the question worded exactly as you worded it above, it would very likely have been just fine...but he didn't.

It is now Tuesday, almost Wednesday, and no conservative news sources are flaunting the story, just a few bloggers who are more concerned with "page hits" than the truth. My guess is that the real news sources see the same thing I do. It just looks too much like he was asking his prospective employees if they would "help us get some payback!"