President Obama has nominated Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general who was appointed to the Justice Department’s civil rights division in 2009, as the next Secretary of Labor. And if the Secretary of Labor is to play a prominent role in shaping immigration reform, it would seem like a logical choice.
Fox News has a somewhat different take
Megyn Kelly is very concerned about Perez’s connection to the New Black Panthers because he opined that the facts didn’t support the case against the party.
If you’re curious about the lawyer cited by Kelly, J. Christian Adams, to cast doubt on Perez’s integrity, let’s take a trip in the way-back machine via TPM
Adams was hired to the Civil Rights Division in 2005 by Bradley Schlozman, the Bush appointee who, as acting head of the division in 2006, was found to have violated rules against politicized hiring, then lied to Congress about it.
Adams is also a former volunteer with the right-wing National Republican Lawyers Association, which has criticized the Obama Justice Department for dropping the New Black Panther case.
And in 2004, as a Bush campaign poll watcher in Florida, Adams publicly criticized a black couple that refused to accept a provisional ballot, after election officials said they had no record of the couple’s change of address forms, Bloomberg reported.
Because Thomas Perez did not agree with Adams’ obviously political-motivated assessment of the case, Adams resigned and resorted to slander. Of course that makes him a reliable source in the eyes of an organization (Fox) that poses race-baiting speculation as news.
Ooga booga! Scary black men!
It will be increasingly difficult for the Republicans to rebrand themselves as tolerant and decidedly not-racist if their primary spokespersons continue to use race as a wedge issue. Because nothing says outreach like turning minorities into perpetual boogeymen to be trotted out any time you need an excuse to oppose the president’s latest nomination.
(H/T Media Matters)