Why hasn't the Justice Department -- and Attorney General Eric Holder in particular -- made much of a decision by the Fifth Circuit upholding the conviction of politician who engaged in an egregious campaign of racial discrimination to disenfranchise voters based upon their race?

Is it because of incompetence?

Is it because the perpetrator is a Democrat?

Or is it because the perpetrator is black and his victims white?

Attorney General Eric Holder calls the U.S. “a nation of cowards” because we “do not talk enough about race.” I find this ironic, since the Justice Department seems embarrassed about a recent judgment in its favor by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. U.S. v. Ike Brown is a major Voting Rights Act case involving intentional race-based discrimination by local officials in Noxubee County, Miss.

When the Fifth Circuit issued its decision on February 27, there was complete silence from Justice. The department typically issues a press release after any significant litigation victory, and the Civil Rights Division trumpets every success. But not here. The silence from the nation’s leading news outlets was also deafening: Not a word was published about the case by the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major publication. Why? Because the offensive conduct at issue did not conveniently track with the Left’s view of race discrimination.

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If the races had been reversed, does anyone doubt this would have been front-page news? Or that Eric Holder would have been prominently quoted in a Justice Department press release calling attention to this outrageous discrimination? The Department of Justice should be proud of this victory. If Attorney General Holder is serious about talking about race, perhaps he could start with this case.

So, let's have that dialogue about race. Is racial discrimination at the voting booth an evil for the federal government to eradicate only when the victims are non-whites -- or is each and every American worthy of having his or her right to vote protected without regard to race or ethnicity? Why were careerists in the Civil Rights Division so opposed to taking and prosecuting this case? And why the failure to talk about race -- and racism -- when the opportunity exists to demonstrate that our nation's government is prepared to act in defense of the liberties of every American when they are the victims of pervasive acts of racism under color of law (as Attorney General Holder claimed was a department goal in a recent speech in Selma, Alabama)?

H/T Discriminations