My article from today’s Front Page Magazine:
After weeks of agitation by the activist Left, would-be vigilantes across America got their wish Wednesday as George Zimmerman was charged in Florida with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
“Three weeks ago our prosecution team promised those sweet parents [of Trayvon Martin] we would get answers to all of their questions, no matter where our quest for the truth led us,” special prosecutor Angela Corey told reporters in Jacksonville. “And it is that search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this night.”
It is far from clear what exactly transpired on that fateful February night in Sanford. At the same time it seems crystal clear that the original version of the story that painted a picture of a fanatical cop-wannabe who, without provocation, brutally gunned down a defenseless young man because he was African-American isn’t quite true.
At trial Zimmerman may be shown to be guilty of something. Lawyers say that for him to be convicted of murder in the second degree under Florida law it would have to be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant lacked the intent to kill but still acted in such a grossly reckless and negligent manner that the victim died. A jury could also take a pass on “Murder 2″ and convict Zimmerman of a lesser offense. Florida’s “stand your ground” law could come into play and complicate matters. The key issue seems to be whether Zimmerman was in the circumstances justified in using lethal force against Martin.
These matters are best decided in court and not in the streets. Yet U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may have already joined the leftist lynch mob and reached his own verdict in the controversial case that, thanks to cheerleader journalism, has divided America. Holder, whose visceral contempt for conservatives is well documented, is the top law enforcement official who has single-mindedly focused on turning the Department of Justice into a postmodernist racial grievance incubator, as brilliantly demonstrated by former DOJ lawyer J. Christian Adams in his excellent book Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.
While the department considers bringing federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the agency is “helping the state in its attempt to bring a case as well,” Holder told reporters at a DOJ press conference Wednesday. While Holder’s underlings burn the midnight oil to find a way to prosecute Zimmerman, the DOJ continues to maintain its eerie silence about the New Black Panther Party’s $10,000 “Wanted Dead or Alive” bounty on the accused man’s head. In Holder’s topsy-turvy worldview some Americans are more equal than others. The man has no stomach for offending black militants or any members of the Democratic Party coalition.
But as racial demagoguery related to the Martin killing inflames communities across the nation, it is telling that Holder took time out from his busy schedule yesterday to drop in on racial arsonist Al Sharpton, president of the Alinskyite “National Action Network” and host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation.”
On the opening day of NAN’s 14th annual convention in the nation’s capital, Holder might as well have genuflected before Sharpton. The attorney general hailed the radical charlatan –who seems ready to execute Zimmerman with his bare hands— for “your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill.” Holder clearly knows how to lay it on thick.
Sharpton, who has arguably replaced Jesse Jackson Sr. as America’s leading race hustler, is a role model for reprobate community organizers everywhere. He had threatened to have his group “move to the next level if Zimmerman” wasn’t arrested. Sharpton swears up and down that his group’s activities will be nonviolent, but it is a hollow promise. With the Left there is virtually no such thing as a nonviolent protest.
Sharpton is infamous for leading angry followers into violent confrontations against whomever his group happens to be targeting at the moment. The flamboyant, scandal-prone socialist is known for his taste for luxury and for his skill in ducking creditors. This absconding debtor once bragged to the New York Times that he didn’t own any business suits but had “access” to some. He would admit only to owning his wristwatch and wedding ring. He became a national figure in 1987 by participating in the Tawana Brawley case, a racially charged gang rape hoax. Sharpton falsely accused prosecutor Steve Pagones of participating in the gang rape. Pagones won a libel judgment against Sharpton that has yet to be satisfied.
Repeat – Holder shamelessly pandered to the careerist thug Sharpton, a man who by sheer luck has managed so far to avoid prison for his outrageously antisocial behavior. Holder and the Obama administration actually regard Sharpton as an upstanding civil rights leader. They really do.
Sharpton, Jackson, and their accomplices in the mainstream media view Trayvon Martin’s tragic death as a golden opportunity for the Left to advance so-called social justice.
They don’t care that all the facts of the case have not yet come in and that those facts that somehow managed to sneak past the gatekeepers of political correctness at the Associated Press are hotly disputed. They trudge on undeterred by doubts and healthy skepticism. They will not allow their predetermined narratives to be obstructed by mere facts, especially where race relations are concerned. To them, black Americans are always being victimized by whites and “The System” a century and a half after slavery was abolished. It is the same tiresome storyline about the evils of American society that students and media consumers are saturation-bombed with every day.
Now mass hysteria has taken hold in the mainstream media. Some journalists are fabricating stories or pumping out very thinly sourced articles on explosive topics related to the case. NBC edited a portion of a telephone call made by Zimmerman to portray him as a racist. A Miami media outlet reported falsely that “armed neo-Nazis” were patrolling the streets of Sanford in the wake of Martin’s death. It’s abject nonsense. The article was apparently based on a mere uncorroborated statement from an obscure white supremacist group. However, it fit the prepackaged storyline so journalistic standards were set aside.
This is the new normal in the Obama era.