Why this radical appointment matters -- By Carl Rowan Jr, The Washington Times

Adegbile utterly unfit for Justice’s civil rights post 

Obama's choice represents a slap in every policeman's face

The media focus on President Obama's Obamacare problems, Benghazi and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's "traffic jam that shook the world" has missed a developing firestorm burning within U.S. law enforcement circles.

The president's recent nomination of a former "Sesame Street" performer turned radical civil rights lawyer, Debo Adegbile, to be assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice is a step too far for those familiar with Mr. Adegbile's record and background.

He isn't the first questionable nomination made by a president who, for one reason or another, seems drawn to those with radical backgrounds, but this one is an open slap in the face to everyone in law enforcement.
As an FBI agent in the 1970s and '80s, I sometimes found myself assigned to investigate a "44." That is bureau-speak for cases involving complaints against law enforcement officers for excessive force that is alleged to have deprived people of their civil rights.

These investigations required questioning of police officers and departments we worked with every day. I did my job as a law enforcement professional, even though that involved the awkward task of reading the accused police officer his or her Miranda rights as a matter of policy.

Agents could not exercise discretion to close a clearly unfounded case. We acted instead as federal note-takers, whose investigative reports were forwarded to the Civil Rights Division, where all prosecutorial decisions were made.

The career, family finances and freedom of the officer under investigation ultimately turned not on our investigation, but on the objectivity and fairness of the division's lawyers and their ability to tell the difference between good, aggressive policing and abusive, illegal behavior.

That was then, but this is now. In today's aggressively partisan political atmosphere, no government institution seems free from the most odious political and ideological behavior. Sadly, that includes the Justice Department of Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who presides over the most politicized Justice Department in my memory.

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