I'm not a big fan of Obama any more and I'm totally pissed that he refuses to press torture charges against Bush admin officials including Cheney, under the absurd "reasoning" that to bring such charges would be "looking backward." Fuck him and fuck his administration.
However, the New Black Panther Party flap is at this point nothing more than a "he-says-she-says" slimefest, with one ex-DOJ lawyer, now a conservative blogger, claiming the case was virtually a slam-dunk and Holder's officials claiming the evidence was weak. There IS an injunction now standing against one of the accused, so it's wrong to say that the Obama administration has taken no action. However as far as the other accused are concerned, here is as much as I could figure out.
from Wikipedia article on Holder:
<<Holder's Department of Justice ended a civil suit originally brought by the Bush administration against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation
due to an apparent lack of evidence. This has caused controversy in some quarters because some former members of the department, including J. Christian Adams, have accused Holder and the Justice Department of dropping the case due to racial prejudice.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holderfrom Fox News:
<<"At a minimum,
without sufficient proof that New Black Panther Party or Malik Zulu Shabazz directed or controlled unlawful activities at the polls, or made speeches directed to immediately inciting or producing lawless action on Election Day, any attempt to bring suit against those parties based merely upon their alleged 'approval' or 'endorsement' of Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jackson’s activities would have likely failed," he [Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez ] told the commission.>>
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/30/justice-dept-lawyer-accuses-holder-dropping-new-black-panther-case-political/I do note that for all of Adams' accusations against the DOJ, all of them seemed to be based on broad, sweeping generalizations such as an "atmosphere" or a "hostility" to something, and although he claims the case would have been a slam-dunk, he makes no specific allegations of specific evidence available to the DOJ that would have cinched the case. Holder's people say there's no evidence of specific directions given or of direct incitement, and these statements remain unrefuted by Adams, who as one of the attorneys in charge of the case would certainly be in a position to contradict the official DOJ line with specifics.
I think it's BS. The usual right-wing bullshit smear with no back-up, as in the Sherrod case just last week. They never let up, but they're all fulla shit.