Pursuant to yesterday’s preliminary comments on the subject of voter-identification laws and the administration”s war against them, my New York Post column today picks up the thread:
If you want to buy over-the-counter cold medicine at your local drugstore, chances are you have to show a photo ID to do it. Same if you want to get on a plane, rent a car or open a bank account. So why not to vote?
But to Attorney General Eric Holder, the idea is an outrage. In the name of “civil rights,” he’s declared war on a nationwide movement to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.
I’ve listened to my friends on the left’s arguments — that there is no electoral fraud, and even if there is so what, what we need are more people voting, not fewer, and besides registration fraud (which they grudgingly admit exists) isn’t the same thing as election fraud, so there — and must say they make no sense whatsoever.
The history of the Democratic party is one long ode to electoral fraud and systemic corruption, and until recently it was a badge they wore proudly. Tammany Hall — wasn’t that somethin’? Did you know Harry Truman was Tom Pendergast’s bag man back in K.C.? Hardy har har. And how about them graveyards voting for Jack in Chicago! That Mayor Daley sure was something else . . . If Republicans were too dumb to roll up theft-proof margins in the hick precincts of New York, Missouri, and Illinois, they deserved to have the elections stolen from them in the big cities.
Today, though, their sheer desperation to deny their own past and current misdeeds (hello, Bridgeport! Take a bow, Seattle!) begs the question: What the hell are they so afraid of? Losing, that’s what — losing the most important election to them in a century, one that either will enshrine Progressivism forever or send them packing back where they belong, poetically speaking.
The history of voting in America has been one of expanding the franchise to include (by constitutional amendment) blacks, women and young adults. But it’s not infinitely expandable to felons, foreigners and fraudsters — no matter how much use the Dems might see in those constituencies.
Were photo-ID regulations as onerous as liberals claim, “the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities” would barely be able to function. Further, it is an insult to millions of Americans to assume that they are too ignorant to know when elections are (hint: they’re generally on Tuesdays).
The Supreme Court, in its 6-3 Indiana decision, called voter-ID laws “eminently reasonable.” That’s the true “moral” position. But with a crucial election coming up next year, expect the Obama administration to go all in to try and stop them.
They fooled the country once, and if they can do it just one more time . . . well, buddy, you’re about to learn the real meaning of the words “fundamental transformation,” starting in January 2013.