Moot Court

This could be the new Democratic mantra:

When are blacks not black? When they are regarded only as Democrats.

When are Democrats not Democrats? When they are regarded only as black.

In a legal argument that, happily, is now moot, Ohio Democrats had attempted to bar Republican poll observers on the grounds that Republicans were concentrating on heavily minority precincts in order “to suppress turnout and intimidate black voters.”

Although the Republicans are guilty (convicted here) of firing the first shot in the racial hypocrisy wars (when they were instrumental in creating the first “majority/minority” districts), the Democrats by now have such a long history of flipping and flopping on the question of when blacks are blacks and when they are Democrats that the original Republican transgression has become dim and distant ancient history.

I have highlighted some (but only some) of the historical, and current, highlights here, and I encourage you to pause and read that before proceeding. No, make that stronger than urge. Pretend that, instead of politely requesting you to follow that link now, I had simply reposted the whole thing here. But you wouldn’t want want me to do that, with its attendant waste of bandwith, so please go read that post now….

O.K. with that under our belts, let us return to Ohio. The Republicans intended to monitor closely heavily Democratic precincts with large numbers of new registrants. Sounds properly partisan, right? Not on your life. The Democrats howled that this was pure voter suppression aimed at minorities.

When Democrats herd minorities into one district in order to elect a Democrat, that’s O.K. because their motive was partisan. When Republicans take minorities out of a district in order to elect a Republican, as they did in Texas, that was racist violation of the voting rights laws. When Republicans challenge newly registered Democratic voters that’s … , well, you get the idea.

But, again happily, all this has become moot. For now.