Gregory Kane
As the U.S. Justice Department sought to block voter identification laws in three states an Albuquerque N.M. man recently registered his dog to vote.
Thomas Tolbert used a fake Social Security number and date of birth to fill out a voter registration card for his dog Buddy. He mailed it in and two weeks later got a voter registration card for Buddy.
According to news reports a woman named Maggie Toulouse Oliver is the clerk of Bernalillo County N.M. According to those same reports Oliver has her nose at least six inches out of joint about what Tolbert did.
He committed voter fraud according to Oliver.
Yo Maggie that was precisely the point Tolbert was trying to make. If it was so easy for him to register his dog how many -- oh I dont know illegal immigrants -- have illegally registered to vote in New Mexico?
Oliver isnt the only one put out with Tolbert. So are the folks in Progress Now New Mexico who figure theyve pulled a Gotcha! moment on Tolbert.
Hes the husband those merry muckrakers at Progress Now New Mexico would like for us to know of none other than Heather Wade. And Wade is a senior staffer for New Mexico U.S. senatorial candidate Heather Wilson.
And Wilson horror of horrors is a Republican!
My response to all this ProgressNow New Mexico muckraking is: So what? Do they really expect us to believe theyre so shocked and appalled at Tolberts law-breaking when its liberals and progressives whove not only winked at but also tacitly condoned and encouraged illegal immigration across the land?
It is because of such voter fraud of the type Tolbert was able to pull off that Republicans across the land have advocated voter identification laws.
And it is progressives and liberals of the ilk of ProgressNow New Mexico who have fought those laws tooth and nail.
Some of those liberals and progressives are in President Obamas administration. His Justice Department might be characterized as illegal immigrant friendly.
In December Obamas Justice Department challenged South Carolinas voter identification law. Obama and his party clearly want as many of what they consider undocumented Democrats -- that would be illegal immigrants to the rest of us -- to have unfettered access to the polls.
Lest anyone think Im making a spurious allegation against the Democrats consider the Justice Departments own language in challenging Texas voter identification law struck down by a federal judge earlier this week.
According to ABC News in Texas the Justice Department ruled that the ID requirement would disproportionately affect the states Hispanic voters 11 percent of which do not have the necessary identification and thus would not be able to vote.
Nor would illegal Hispanic immigrants who like Tolbert did with his dog registered to vote using fake names dates of birth and Social Security numbers.
When Arizona passed a law designed to let its police officers do the job federal immigration officials clearly are not it was Obamas Justice Department that hauled the state into court challenging the law.
When Alabama passed an even tougher law attempting to rein in illegal immigration there was Obamas Justice Department again taking up the cause of the lawbreakers not law-abiding citizens.
Obamas Justice Department has yet to haul the state of Maryland into court. Maryland legislators unlike those in Arizona and Alabama blatantly defied federal law by allowing illegal immigrants to renew their drivers licenses.
The stench from Obamas hypocrisy and double standards should be wafting out to the planet Neptune right about now. Republicans will have to hold our noses when we go to the polls in November.
But you can bet not one Democrat will.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
