And Justice For All by Richard Fernandez Share
The salient thing about J. Christian Adams’s accusation that the Obama administration deliberately let off the New Black Panther Party after it engaged in voter intimidation is that, if true, it constitutes a pure exercise in the abuse of power. The other wrongs it represents — the perversion of the electoral process, the violation of civil rights — are secondary. The most serious allegation in the whole affair is that the certain officials countenanced a crime because they wanted to. The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice.
Adams was a Department of Justice lawyer who resigned in disgust after “we were ordered to dismiss the case. I mean we were told drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party. It’s the easiest case I ever had at the Justice Department. It doesn’t get any easier than this. If this doesn’t constitute voter intimidation, nothing will. .. ”
Like the recently concluded Robert Wone case — in which three gay men were acquitted of the murder of a man in their apartment — the New Black Panther incident pits a politically powerful minority against ordinary victims. The public is asked to understand the situation from the perspective of the underdog. What does it matter if men in New Black Party uniforms paced across a voting precinct? They’re just evening the score. Or so we are told. But in situations where the world’s largest midget fights the world’s smallest giant the “correct narrative” is no longer so obvious; just who is bigger is no longer clear and the system by rights should fall back on the law itself and ask itself “who really violated the law.”...
Read the rest: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/07/01/and-justice-for-all/
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