Former DoJ Officials Say Voting Chief's Comments on Photo ID 'False' 'Cherry Picked' 'Ludicrous'

[BradBlog]

Former DoJ Officials Say Voting Chief's Comments on Photo ID 'False' 'Cherry Picked' 'Ludicrous'
Statement Suggesting Whites More Disenfranchised Than Minorities Because They 'Die First' Before Becoming Elderly, Disputed by John Tanner's Predecessor, Former Colleagues
An 'Imus Moment' Declares a BRAD BLOG DoJ Source...

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckracker has picked up on, and advanced, our Exclusive report yesterday concerning the remarkable comments made last Friday by John Tanner, the Chief of the Civil Rights Division, Voting Unit at the DoJ concerning Photo ID restrictions at the polls.

In a follow up report today, Kiel gets reaction from former DoJ officials, including the man who previously held the same job as Tanner at the DoJ, charging that the remarks and logic behind them is entirely wrong and moreover "frankly ludicrous", "false" and based on "cherry-picking the data that he wants to use."

A DoJ source of our own wrote to us after yesterday's report and characterized the comments as Tanner's "Imus moment."

Tanner had told a group in Los Angeles last Friday --- and our own Alan Breslauer was there to catch it on video tape --- that non-minorities were more likely to be disenfranchised by such restrictive polling laws laws than were African-Americans.

"It's probably true that among those who don't , it's primarily elderly persons. And that's a shame," Tanner told the audience. He then added: "Of course...our society is such that minorities don't become elderly. The way that white people do. They die first." ...

COMPLETE STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5149

[hootinholler]

1. kick. n/t