Holder's Chutzpah
By Thomas Sowell 6/1/2012
Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of black clergymen that
the right to vote was being threatened by people who are seeking to block
access to the ballot box by blacks and other minorities.
This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped
attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of
black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia
voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.
This may have seemed like a small episode to some at the time, but it was
only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting
that case -- J. Christian Adams -- resigned from the Department of Justice in
protest, and wrote a book about a whole array of similar race-based decisions
on voting rights by Eric Holder and his subordinates at the Department of
Justice.
The book is titled "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama
Justice Department." It names names, dates and places around the country
where the Department of Justice stopped its own attorneys from pursuing cases
of voter fraud and intimidation, when it was blacks who were accused of these
crimes.
If Mr. Adams is lying, he has taken a huge risk in citing individuals by
name and quoting them directly. Yet, despite the fact that most of those he
accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him. Moreover, Adams
has also testified under oath before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on
the racial double standard at the Department of Justice, when it comes to
voting rights.
What Attorney General Holder has been complaining loudly about, and
launching federal lawsuits about, are states that require photo identification
to vote. Holder calls this blocking minority "access" to the voting
booths.
Since millions of black Americans -- like millions of white Americans -- are
confronted with demands for photo identification at airports, banks and
innumerable other institutions, it is a little much to claim that requiring the
same thing to vote is denying the right to vote. But Holder's chutzpah is up to
the task.
Attorney General Holder claims that the states' requirement of photo
identification for voting, in order to prevent voter fraud, is just a pretext
for discriminating against blacks and other minorities. He apparently sees no
voter fraud, hears no voter fraud and speaks no voter fraud.
Despite Holder's claim, a little experiment in his own home voting district
showed how easy it is to commit voter fraud. An actor -- a white actor, at that
-- went to a voting place where Eric Holder is registered to vote, and told
them that he was Eric Holder.
The actor had no identification at all with him, either with or without a
photo. He told the voting official that he had forgotten and left his
identification in his car. Instead of telling him to go back to the car and get
some identification, the official said that that was all right, and offered him
the ballot.
The actor had the good sense not to actually take the ballot, which would
have made him guilty of voter fraud -- and, being white, he would undoubtedly
have been prosecuted by Eric Holder's Department of Justice.
But the actor had made his point. When a white man with no identification
can go to a voting site, impersonate a black man who lives in that district,
and get his ballot offered to him, then it is far too easy to commit voter
fraud.
Does not Attorney General Eric Holder understand that? Of course he
understands it! The man is not stupid, despite his other failings.
Holder's pooh-poohing of voter fraud dangers, and hyping the
"threat" of denying minorities "access" to the voting
booth, are completely consistent with his drive to (1) maximize the number of
votes by black Democrats and (2) spread as much fear as possible among
minorities that they are under siege, and that the Democrats are their only
protection and salvation.
It is a political protection racket, with payoffs in votes.
Nor can Holder's boss, Barack Obama, be unaware of voter fraud. After all,
he comes from Chicago, where voting
officials refuse to discriminate against dead people.
