Stephen Robert Morse.
As you may be aware, a couple of years ago two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia dressed in dark jackets and berets and doing their best to look vaguely menacing. One of them carried a nightstick. They chose to do this in a majority-black precinct that always votes overwhelmingly Democratic, which doesn’t seem like especially fertile ground for intimidation of white voters, but they were charged with intimidation anyway. In due course their case came up, they didn’t bother defending themselves, judgment was rendered, the Department of Justice got an injunction against the nightstick guy, and then the Obama administration dropped further action. Conservatives went nuts and have since given the NBPP almost endless amounts of publicity, which, as it always is with the NBPP, is what they were after in the first place.
The free publicity continues to this day, with various folks testifying that DOJ dropped the case because Barack Obama refuses to prosecute cases of civil rights violations against white people. In other words, blah blah Kenya blah blah reparations blah blah etc. etc. The usual.
But wait! Today Andrew Breitbart raises the bar even higher for lunatic conservative conspiracy theorizing. The National Chairman of the NBPP is one Malik Shabazz, and in July 2009, just as the NBPP case was reaching a — well, reaching nothing actually. Some Republicans were “demanding answers” at the time, but that’s about it. But still, just as these Republicans were demanding answers, “a man named Malik Shabazz visited the exclusive, private residence in the White House”! Breitbart wants an explanation:
The White House has assured the American people that the Malik Shabazz that visited the White House at that time is not the same Malik Shabazz at the center of the New Black Panther story. But, the White House has not provided any information to verify its contention or who this “other” Malik Shabazz is.
We call on the White House to act in the spirit of their transparency policy and provide further information, sufficient to independently verify the identity of the person named Malik Shabazz who visited the White House private residence in July of 2009.
Now, as Breitbart might or might not know, Malcolm X was also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. So it’s not as odd as it might seem for there to be more than one African American in the country by that name. And the guy in the White House logs is Malik H. Shabazz, not Malik Zulu Shabazz, the nutcase who heads up the NBPP. And he was there as part of a group tour of the White House along with 310 other people.
But no matter. We want answers! Maybe the middle initial is a feint. Maybe Shabazz broke off from the group and surreptitiously headed over to the Oval Office for a secret meeting. Maybe he and Obama cut a deal to…..do something. That part isn’t clear, since the case had already been dropped by then. But something! Maybe plans for a vast wave of white voter intimidation in the midterm elections that Obama promised would get winked at by the authorities. Or a promise that a billion dollars worth of stimulus money would somehow find its way to the party’s coffers. Something!
This is what we have to look forward to if Republicans win control of the House in November. I’m sure Darrell Issa has an investigation of the NBPP already teed up and raring to go. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Sure it does! If you’re not sure, be sure to check out the comments to the Breitbart post.
