E.J. Dionne Jr. does not want to talk about the facts of the New Black Panther Party case. In his column today he dismisses the issue “right-wing propaganda” while blithely repeating blatant falsehoods. The American Spectator‘s Quin Hillyer called Dionne out this morning:
He writes: “This is a story about a tiny group of crackpots who stopped no one from voting.” WRONG. Does Dionne ever actually do his own research and read documents? Two different people, both of them highly credible witnesses, including civil rights legend Bartle Bull, swore under oath that they each saw three people literally turn around and leave without voting after seeing the Panthers.
You can read Bull’s testimony, and other evidence of actual voters being actually intimidated, here. Hillyer goes on to tackle some of the other statements Dionne made about U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Abigail Thernstrom:
Dionne reports Abigail Thernstrom’s charge that the other Civil Rights Commissioners are motivated simply by wanting to “topple” the Obama administration. But he doesn’t mention that each of the five has denied the charge vociferously, nor does he explain why their motivation has anything to do with what the actual facts are, nor does he ask why Thernstrom spent six solid months claiming that the case indeed was “blatant voter intimidation.” Thernstrom herself acknowledged in April that at least three voters “were intimidated…I mean I take seriously when anybody is intimidated, and I’m not dismissing that experience of theirs…but nevertheless, it seems to me the case of the New Black Panther Party actually blocking people from voting would be stronger if there were more than three people that we’re talking about here.” In other words, she admitted voter intimidation, but just argued that there weren’t MANY people who were intimidated.
You can read Thernstrom’s prior admission that voters were intimated, here. And National Review’s Andy McCarthy has a more thorough discussion of Thernstrom’s role here.
As bad as Dionne may wish this story would disappear, that simply is not going to happen until the Obama administration starts being more transparent and stops stonewalling Congress and the Commission by not allowing those involved to testify openly. Heritage fellow Hans von Spakovsky reported Friday:
I just learned from a congressional source that all seven GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — Jeff Sessions, Orrin Hatch, Charles Grassley, Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Tom Coburn — sent a letter to Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy demanding an oversight hearing of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ to investigate the dismissal of this case and the allegations of racialist enforcement of the civil-rights laws (PDF of the letter here). The senators cited sworn testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes instructed Division attorneys that they would not pursue cases against black defendants and that the DOJ has no interest in enforcing Section 8of the National Voter Registration Act.
Dionne finishes his article today by writing: “If Obama hates the current media climate, he should stop overreacting to it. And the mainstream media should stop being afraid of insisting on the difference between news and propaganda.” This is a great idea. Enough propaganda from the Obama DoJ apologists. What is the real story behind the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party case.