Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is sending teams of federal monitors to 18 states to “watch for discrimination against voters.” The list of states appears completely random: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. DOJ can’t possibly have the manpower to cover more than a relative handful of precincts in those 18 states, so one wonders what the point is.

Holder explained in his usual sanctimonious style:

“One of the Justice Department’s most sacred responsibilities is ensuring access to the ballot box for every eligible American,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message on the department’s website. “I want the American people to know that the Justice Department will stand vigilant — working in a fair and nonpartisan manner to ensure that every voter can cast his or her ballot free of intimidation, discrimination or obstruction,” he said.

So does that mean that New Black Panthers won’t be standing outside polling places with billy clubs this year? Just kidding. And, of course, Eric Holder has never done anything in a “fair and nonpartisan manner” in his six years as Attorney General.

But, seriously, what does it mean? Have you ever seen anything at a polling place that remotely amounted to intimidation, discrimination or obstruction? I haven’t. Presumably this is all part of the Democrats’ effort to keep alive the myth of voter suppression. That pretense seems to be a key element in their strategy to keep African-American voters in the fold, notwithstanding that the Democrats’ policies are devastating to black voters’ interests. And I guess it must work.

But doesn’t reality intrude at some point? Didn’t blacks vote more heavily, pro rata, than whites in 2012? I believe they did. Does that mean that white voters are somehow being “suppressed”? And when blacks go to the polls in record numbers, as they have been, isn’t it blindingly obvious that no one is trying to intimidate, obstruct or discriminate against them? Presumably so. That being the case, I would think that the Democrats’ “voter suppression” strategy must be getting a little threadbare.