The New Black Panther Party scary black men are baaaccckkkk on Fox News! Didn't you just know Fox would not get through today's election without blowing at least one racial dog whistle about "voter intimidation?" And how fortunate that this particular dog whistle emanated from the swing state of Pennsylvania!
Of course, when Fox frets about voter intimidation what it really means is black people intimidating whites. Because while Fox endlessly fixated a few years back on the Obama administration's decision not to prosecute two NBPP members for voter intimidation (even though no voters had complained about being intimidated), yesterday, host Brian Kilmeade suggested that intimidating voters into "playing it straight" is the "best thing" a presidential campaign can do.
But this morning, there was a Fox News Alert that a member of the New Black Panther Party was standing in front of a polling place in a majority black precinct in Philadelphia. Host Steve Doocy said the scene “looks like intimidation, like in 2008.” As I wrote in a post on Crooks and Liars,
Well, if it is like 2008, then the only thing to fear is how Fox News may misuse and distort the incident. An excellent article in Main Justice, a website that reports on the DOJ, explains with great clarity and specificity just how Fox teamed up with GOP operatives to politicize - in an especially racial context - the Obama administration's decision not to make a federal case out of the inconsequentially semi-thuggish behavior of two black men acting as poll watchers in a district with 34 whites in a precinct of 970. Nearly two years later, Main Justice noted:
“No voters at all in the Philadelphia precinct have come forward to allege intimidation. The complaints have come from white Republican poll watchers, who have given no evidence they were registered to vote in the majority black precinct.”
It will be interesting to see how much Fox continues to make of this non-story. Anyone want to bet that the importance Fox places on it will match that of the GOP?
I feel cheated!
What behaviour? Manners? Opening doors for people? No one complained about him being there, he didn’t look armed, he may have been a poll watcher.
This is almost as stupid as their outrage that one of the polling places had an Obama Mural that wasn’t covered up enough to satisfy the far right. $10 says Fox News shopped an older picture, the room didn’t even look set up. The posters looked like tournament charts, to be honest.
Like Aunty Em and Istvan both said last night: It looks like they’re setting up the excuses for if Romney loses already. I couldn’t agree more.
FOX “news” Talk Radio buffoon and race baiter, John Gibson, said today that he thinks the Dems are going to act out badly and he thinks people should avoid, ahem, certain intersections otherwise what happened to truck driver Reginald Denny might happen to them.
There you have it – black people are going to go on the attack. (eye roll)
Am listening to Cavuto who’s all perturbed about European observers coming to the polling stations. How dare they! etc. etc.
I don’t know if those observers are legit or not (hadn’t heard of any being sent). However, both the less-than-enlightening example of the 2000 election and the constant references to voter fraud (at least on Fox) suggests that it would probably not be a bad idea for concerned countries to send observers just to make sure things are done properly.
