In a prior post I addressed the controversy surrounding the Department of Justice’s handling of a 2008 voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther party. Now, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine has opened an investigation related to this case. The Office of Professional Responsibility will not investigate the New Black Panther case specifically, but will initiate a broader review of how the Justice Department enforces voting rights laws. Two Republican congressmen, Frank R. Wolf (Va.) and Lamar Smith (Tex.) had asked Fine to specifically investigate the New Black Panther Party case, but he declined. The right,for the most part, is angry that this case is being ignored. However, Abigail Thernstrom of The National Review has a little different take on the issue. She sees the New Black Panther Party as a “lunatic fringe” group, and the case itself as “small potatoes.” She’s more concerned with redistricting under proposed new guidelines to the Voting Rights Act. Thernstrom believes these new regulations, if enacted, will “deeply affect the landscape of American politics for the decade to come, and perhaps beyond.”
Conservatives are accusing the Obama administration of politicizing the Civil Rights Division, just as liberals accused the Bush administration a few years back.
The reality is that the Department Of Justice is politicized, whichever party is in power.
