The government's duty to protect George Zimmerman

In response to DOJ To Investigate Zimmerman – Still Not Interested In New Black Panther Threats:

This is one of the more bizarre and frustrating aspects of the Zimmerman trial and its aftermath.  Zimmerman has been under constant death threats.  It’s conventional wisdom that he’ll spend the rest of his life in hiding, never able to live normally again.  The mob seems to take great satisfaction from this, judging by their triumphant Internet chatter.  Victor Cruz, wide receiver for the New York Giants, beclowned himself with a Twitter message estimating that “Zimmerman doesn’t last a year before the hood catches up to him,” for which he later apologized.  (For a little variety from the sports world, Roddy White of the Atlanta Falcons told the jurors to “go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid, for which he also eventually offered a tepid apology.)

The scent of death hangs heavy in the air, but aside from generally urging everyone to remain calm and respect the legal system, our titanic mega-government has not had much to say about it.  It wasn’t so long ago that liberals were driven into foaming-at-the-mouth spasms by their sick fantasies of a “right-wing Climate of Hate” that supposedly drove the Tucson shooter over the edge into violence.  Here’s an actual Climate of Hate – something far more substantial than the crap that trickles down Paul Krugman’s fevered brow – and nobody on the Left seems terribly interested in denouncing it.  

How about some leadership from our great racial healer of a President?  Obama could do a lot of good with a quick speech telling everyone to be ashamed of themselves for urging the murder of George Zimmerman, or even fantasizing about it.  Instead of running his dishonest little kabuki theater over the civil-rights charges he’ll never file, Attorney General Eric Holder should be making strong and unequivocal statements that neither violence, nor the incitement to violence, against Zimmerman (or anyone else) will be tolerated. 

This ugly situation is starting to boil over.  There’s a report out of Baltimore tonight about a group of black youths beating up a Hispanic man while chanting “This is for Trayvon.”  One of the thugs reportedly had a gun.  Generalized admonitions about civility and respect for the rule of law aren’t going to cut it – we need national leadership from President Obama and his Attorney General, and that means calling out some of the people spreading hatred and disinformation by name.  It’s time for this President to prove himself concerned about something other than harvesting political capital to push his agenda.