Over at her “pragmatic progressive” political blog, the head of nonprofit organization in Minnesota analyzes some data collected by a right-wing group on the impressive lawyer appointees being added by Attorney General Eric Holder, the first black attorney general ever. The right-wing group is very disturbed that Holder is moving the agency away from weak or no enforcement of civil rights laws to much more aggressive enforcement. This includes the hiring of many (106 so far) new career lawyers, almost all with real-world experience in the area of civil rights and civil rights enforcement in regard to gender, racial group, and gay/lesbian groups — which experience seems to qualify them all as “leftist” as seen by the right-wing group. Take a look at their mostly impressive resumes.
It is more than odd that numerous progressive government policy changes under President Obama, such as much more aggressive enforcement of the civil rights laws, has gotten little mainstream media coverage. This is one of many Obama actions that provide a major contrast with the weak or nonexistent enforcement of civil rights and other human-protective laws under the George Bush administration.
This paradigm shift is worth much more media and scholarly analysis, right?
Joe! Shhhhh!!! If everybody knows, the Republicans will stop it!
(I’m only kinda kidding. Kinda.)
Sadly, it is the right wing Republican site that has been intensively targeting these actions, and the progressive left that has ignored such major changes. And why?
Was that rhetorical?
If not, my first guess is that they’re over-invested in Obama being a progressive failure. I always thought Obama would have to be “twice as good” to impress the white left.
My next guess is that they don’t really too much care about civil rights enforcement since it doesn’t affect them.
But still, I fear that if Fox forces everybody to cover the changes, or question why the “liberal” media isn’t alerting everyone to the “leftist” changes, Republicans will find a way to halt the hires. Though, to be sure, I really, really doubt that’s why the left has been so quiet.
It wouldn’t surprise me if most Republicans would include this into their blanket assertions that the Obama administration is hurting job creation due to their “excessive” regulations. Bob Shrum had a nice column today that might give Obama supporters a lift at http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/219345/the-democrats-self-defeating-crybaby-chorus. He says “from health reform to financial reform to the salvation of the auto industry and the prevention of depression, Obama has a historic record of achievement.” Historic and yet Shrum (and about everyone else in MSM) fail to mention this.